Knight of the Force
by Illuviar
Summary: When he dies on the second Death Star, Darth Vader is transported to his younger body, during the start of the Clone Wars. The galaxy will never be the same again.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. It belongs to Disney. I make no money from this story.**

**AN: This part was betaed by kalvasflam on the Space Battles forums! Thank you very much!**

**Knight of the Force**

**=KoF=**

**Prologue: Shadow from the future**

* * *

**Grand Arena**

**Geonosis**

Two Jedi and a Republic senator were bound to pillars in the middle of a circular arena. They were about to be executed as a spectacle for the locals and more importantly – to remove a thorn in the side of Count Dooku and his cronies.

A group of spear wielding Geonosian guards entered the sand covered arena, herding a trio of beasts towards the captives.

First was an irritated and hungry feline, with too many teeth and claws for comfort. A pissed off herbivore followed, pointing it's sharp, nasty horns at anything that caught it's attention. The group was completed by a giant, ravenous insect hailing from Felucia, which could swallow a standard humanoid in two bites. It's teeth filled mouth was gaping in a hungry grin, made even worse by the non-stop, excited chittering it emitted.

Two of the captives were about to be served as dinner, pleasing the crowd, while the last one was tagged as a stress relief for the herbivore, which was looking at it's chosen target like it wanted to trample him to its heart content.

The pair of bound men were Jedi so by default they were far from helpless even is situation such as that. Even their companion, Senator Padme Amidala, who didn't have their natural abilities and training, had survived many hairy situations and wasn't going to let herself be an afternoon snack.

Anakin looked at the woman he had just admitted to himself that he loved. He was going to get her out of there. Somehow.

Amidala gave the young man who had captured her heart a brave simile. Their eyes met for a single moment, that lasted an eternity.

Meanwhile, the six legged terror was trying to impale Obi-Wan on its forward legs.

Noticing that Skywalker was left out of the fun, two guards started poking the backside of the herbivore with their spears, which had electrified tips. The animal released angry below and charged at the middle pillar, where Anakin was bound.

Then everything changed.

The young Jedi was staring at Padme with unseeing eyes. His master, despite being preoccupied with the kriffing thing trying to eat him, felt the Force itself trembling. If he was looking at his apprentice, Kenobi would have seen silvers of light and dark Force energies dancing around the younger Jedi.

From the stands, Count Dooku was watching Skywalker with a frown. The Force was screaming at him like an overloaded starfighter engine. Something was coming. Dangerous. Deadly beyond measure.

Yet, the Sith Lord couldn't see it.

There were just the captives who were being used as both entertainment and a statement that the Confederation would no longer bow to the Republic. Dooku watched as the young fool was standing there, doing nothing, just a moment away from being gutted by the animal. To the youngster's right, Amidala had climbed to the top of her pillar. She was wielding the chain with which her hands were tied as a whip in an effort to fend off the agile predator that was trying to munch on her.

Dooku's eyes widened when the charging herbivore slammed into an invisible wall and fell to its hind legs. The animal released a quiet keen of distress. Even from his vantage point, the former Jedi could see that the horn of the beast had snapped.

It was at that moment he could finally sense it. It was as if an invisible barrier had just shattered, revealing a torrent of raw Force raging amidst the arena.

Meanwhile, Padme was in trouble. Obviously, the cat like creature that was chosen as the former Queen's nemesis had no problem scaling up the pillar on which she was taking refuge. The carnivore trilled in irritation when Padme struck it on the snout with the chain. It descended couple of meters before lunging upwards and twisting in the air. Its right paw shot in a lighting fast swipe and razor sharp claws raked Amidala, leaving three bloody lines on the senator's back.

Padme shouted in pain and surprise.

There. That was the moment the fate of a whole galaxy changed.

"Padme!" thundered a furious shout.

The localized disturbance in the Force ended, as if it was never there. But those who had eyes to see it, knew better. Something was left behind. Or rather someone.

In the stand overlooking the arena, both Count Dooku and many of the Jedi infiltrating the place, turned their eyes to the source of the shout. There was a sight that would remain with those who lived through this day to the end of their lives. Anakin Skywalker, was painful to look at. For those who could perceive the Force, he was like the heart of a star, if one was hallowed by tendrils of pure darkness.

Anakin was enveloped by a sphere made of Light and Dark Force energies, which were rippling as if battling for supremacy. Yet, from their positions in the stands, the Force Adepts felt nothing from the young man. As if he was merely an illusion made by the will of the Force.

Without a warning the sphere dissipated, disintegrating the chain with which Skywalker was bound. The released energy touched the pillar to which he was chained and blew it into small pieces, which rained all over the back of the arena, wounding many of the spectators. Those who still could, flew away for their lives.

**=KoF=**

* * *

**The Death Star**

**High orbit over Endor**

Lord Vader looked around in confusion. His son had refused to join the Dark Side, infuriating Sidious. That's why, the Emperor was cackling like a maniac, while torturing Luke with Sith Lighting. The kriffing technique was slowly frying the young man's nervous system, killing him piece by piece while drowning his whole being in excruciating agony. The Force itself was rippling around them, as if she was watching the unfolding drama with baited breath.

Then something happened to Vader's eyes. It was as if he was at many places at the same time.

A blink and he was staring at a sand covered ground. The arena on Geonosis, moments after Padme and his younger self admitted their feelings to each other. Vader's cold heart started beating a bit faster at the memory of those different, better times.

The view shifted, and something clicked in his mind. He was laying on an ash covered gravel, once again experienced the fiery pain of his own skin and flesh igniting on the shore of that Force damned river of lava.

A blink, and Vader was away. The Dark Lord was laying strapped down on that kriffing operating table. A soulless machine was cutting into his seared flesh, caring not for his agonized screams. Vader felt every second of the process that sealed him in the kriffing suit he's been wearing ever since.

When the ordeal was over, Sidious who watched the operation came closer, informing him of Padme's fate. Saying that Anakin was the one who killed her in his rage.

That was the defining moment of Vader's life. Indeed, it was the moment of his birth. It was then, that Anakin Skywalker died, leaving a broken, crippled man to terrorize the galaxy for the next tow decades.

He blinked, unrestrained fury roaring within his heart. The Force shifted and a man long dead looked through the Dark Lord's eyes. Vader and Skywalker, both, watched as the Emperor tortured their son right in front of them. Something deep within the being that was both a Fallen Jedi and a Sith, a monster and a father, snapped.

With a furious bellow of wordless rage, Vader grabbed his master. The cyborg ignored the purple whips of Sith lightning that stopped ravaging his son and jumped at him, flaying his flesh and flung Sidious in a kilometers deep shaft, which led deep in the bowels of the Death Star. Unfortunately for Vader, energy that arched over his body had changed in the last moment. From the tool of torture and slow death directed at his son, the Emperor managed to tweak it into a lethal torrent of power, fussing the cyborg's artificial limbs and parts of his environmental suit to frying flesh. The last living Sith staggered, but managed to glance at the prone form of his son.

Vader forced himself to ignore the agony coursing through his body and grasped the Force, checking on Luke. He smiled under his sealed helmet. His son was going to be all right. He could feel it.

The wave of relief washed over Vader was enough to break his concentration, letting the pain strike him in full force. He stumbled, his fried artificial limbs flailing uselessly… and tumbled straight over the edge of the abyss that took Sidious.

As he was falling to his end, Vader tried to smile, his tired face twisting into a toothy grimace. Then he chuckled under his terror inspiring helmet. He had a great view of the places where Sidious had bounced from the walls and left red smears.

At least now, his son and daughter were safe. At last, he had his vengeance. And for the first time in ages, Vader felt content. Because his son and daughter were safe, outside of Palpatine's grip.

As the last remaining Sith tumbled to his death, the strange phenomenon returned. He could see part of his life, flashing before his eyes. In crystal clarity, just as if he was there once again.

The first time he met Padme as a kid. Winning the pod race on Tatooine.

His first accidental flight and blowing up that command ship by pure luck. Or as the Jedi said – because it was the will of the Force.

Heh. As if he could believe that. Kriffing Jedi and kriffing Force. If this hell he's been through was her will, then to hell with her!

As if to answer his accusations, the Force flared around him. The doomed man felt as if his fall was occurring in slow motion. He had a few precious moments to think about his late wife. His Angel.

Padme was the one of the few good things in what had become a nightmarish existence, and for a moment he allowed himself to wonder what would have happened if he had taken another path. If he had been a better husband… not the self centered fool who was lucky enough to marry a marvelous woman.

Vader fell towards the light at the bottom of the pit, a wave upon wave of pure Dark Side emanating from the corpse of the former Emperor slamming in his battered body.

He ignored the sweet, seductive feeling that the power gave him and fought to remain conscious. In his final moments, all Vader wanted was to see Padme's face one more time.

So he fought through the agony lighting up his whole body and grasped the Force with all his might. His whole being was concentrated on single purpose – to shift those strange visions in a singular direction.

Light and Dark warred as he was coming perilous close to the bottom.

The light of the reactor at the bottom become all he could see before the harsh glare subdued, revealing a slice from the past.

Vader saw his Angel. Her face was set up in that determined expression that made her look irresistible. She was starring at something below her.

Just as he was about to hit the bottom, Padme screamed in pain.

Vader could feel three lines of liquid fire being rend on her back.

His Padme was hurt. In pain.

The bottom of the shaft was racing at him, the reactor core mere meters from his falling body. By all rights he should have been evaporated by the chained energies at the bottom.

It was in that moment that past and future collided.

With everything he was, every last shred of the Force he could grasp, Vader screamed his wife's name.

"Padmeee!"

For a single moment, the world stood still.

The Chosen One was calling on the Force for one last time.

And she answered. For an instant a new star was born just above the Death Star's main reactor, before blinking out forever.

For Luke Skywalker and everyone who lived in that time and age, both Sidious and Vader died on the Death Star. The future continued on its course.

Yet, in a sand covered arena, Fate itself unraveled...

The lethal game started by Palpatine decades ago had a new player. And the Galaxy would never be the same again.

**=KoF=**

* * *

**Grand Arena**

**Geonosis**

The young man who was Anakin Skywalker screamed soundlessly. His mind was struck by a monstrous force, harder than the broadside of a star cruiser. Another mind, older, darker and twisted slammed into his very being, coming through his mind shields as if they weren't there. Anakin saw a figure of black metal interposed upon what suspiciously looked like an older image of himself. Then his world was drowned by an unending torrent of memories, a few magnificent ones, centered on a fantasy of a life with Padme, the rest – a pure nightmare.

He tried to fight, to scream in defiance.

All for naught. His very being, the sens of self, were swamped, drowned and watered down until nothing but a shadow remained. Until mercifully, it all ended. The Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker closed his eyes for one last time and he was finally at peace.

**=KoF=**

* * *

Vader slowly opened his eyes, his head pounding with a torrent of fresh memories from his younger self. He was back where it all began – on that kriffing Arena on Geonosis.

The Force flooded into him, more of her than he could feel and wield ever since his encounter with Kenobi on Mustafar. He gasped in wonder at her power. His whole being hummed with power, his senses sharpening by the second. The hot air he was breathing in… with his own, working lungs… The harsh glare of the sun upon his skin… Those were the first things he felt, and it was nothing like the nightmares of the past he often had.

The Force didn't lie. It was real. Vader could feel it in his bones. He took a deep breath, the hot air bathing his lungs feeling marvelous. The Force Adept blinked a few time, his eyes taking what he saw. A familiar beastie was sitting on its hind legs, moaning in confusion. One of its horns laid broken on the scorching sands. Vader could feel a familiar Force signature to his left, one that almost threw him into rage.

Kenobi.

Then Vader remembered where and when he was. His head snapped to the right, eyes desperately searching for a lithe form in white trousers and top which left her midriff bare.

Padme was atop a pillar, just as he remembered. A long chain connected her bound hands to the stone construct. Her beautiful face was twisted in pain.

For a second he stood frozen in wonder, a foolish grin appearing on his face. She was here. Hurt but alive!

The crowd cheering Padme's suffering shattered the spell and the smile froze on his face. He glared at the damn insects on the stands, then traveled upon the rows of spectators until he was looking upon the Separatist leaders who were watching smugly from their elevated positions.

Dooku, who was hiding the fact that he had fallen to the Dark side.

Poggle the lesser and all the other scum.

He saw the Jedi who were infiltrating the stands too, despite the fact that they were cloaking themselves from detection.

He shook his head, refusing to yield to his rage again. He had done so once and lost Padme forever. Never again! His fury was a tool to be used, not something that could be allowed to have a say in his actions ever again.

Vader paused for a moment, chaining his rage and using it like a fuel. The Force buzzed in content, almost eager for his touch.

In a way that made it look easy, he vaulted to the top of the pillar where the love of his life was hunched in pain. He effortlessly balanced on the small platform that was barely wide enough for one person and engulfed Padme in a fierce hug, while carefully avoided touching the bloody gashes on her back. She leaned into his chest and Vader felt her relief..

A distant part of his mind was basking in the feeling of a younger, powerful body, which didn't need a mass of cybernetics to keep him alive. Of hands made form flesh and blood, which could actually feel the woman he was embracing.

His Padme. Soft and warm. Most importantly, alive. Vader felt that he could stay that way forever.

The brief moment of peace was rudely interrupted by the feline which apparently didn't possess enough sense to run away while it still could. Instead, the beast started climbing the pillar while hissing at the pair. The animal glared at its chosen prey and the interloper who had dared interfere with its hunt, yowling at them.

It met the gaze of the newcomer and froze. Two mismatched eyes, one azure and one sickly yellow gazed back.

Invisible hand grasped the beast and wrenched it from the pillar, despite its frantic attempts to cling to the stone. The animal clawed at the pillar in a futile attempt to reach it's prey, leaving behind rends in the tough surface as well as a single claw, which was torn out of one of the feline's paws.

The predator, whined piteously, before the power holding it imploded, caving in its torso. The corpse fell to the ground with quiet thump.

Vader cracked a small smile and returned his full attention to the woman cradled in his arms.

He felt... complete. The perpetual ocean of anger pumping within his chest was subdued, becoming almost serene. The only dark cloud cast over his mood was that despite being whole once more, he felt tired, almost exhausted.

Whatever whim of the Force had brought him here, at that place and time, had drained most of his strength in the process. However, Vader wasn't going to complain. He had the second chance he craved for. He could put everything right! Both with his wife and his future Empire!

Acting on impulse, Anakin coated his right hand with the Force and slowly waved it over the still bleeding gashes on Padme's back. He infused her wounds with healing energies, drawing on his own life force to feed his healing technique.

To his surprise it actually worked, the angry rends in Padme's flawless skin closing before his eyes. He had created this healing art in order to patch up his own critical wounds, however that it hadn't been potent enough to heal his burned out body in the future he came from.

Padme sighed in content, snuggling into his embrace.

It made his heart skip a beat, making him feel like a schoolboy in love.

If the circumstances were different he might have laughed at himself. The Dark Lord of the Sith brought to his proverbal knees by this slip of a girl. No one in the future would have believed it.

A loud crash interrupted the hugging couple. Vader looked with amusement how the Felucian insectoid broke the far left pillar in two during its attempt to reach Kenobi and use him as a snack. The part of him that was the Sith Lord wanted nothing more than to see the Jedi eaten.

However, the tiny shadow that was left of Anakin Skywalker had always regretted how the last encounter with his former master had ended. That Kenobi had been too set up in his old ways to see the truth. Yet, here he was – somehow back in time, long before everything went to hell.

Vader stared at his former master. What to do…

With exasperated sigh and roll of his eyes, Skywalker held tightly his... future wife. Yeah, they were not yet married in this day and age. Damn!

With a light tug through the Force he snapped the chains binding her hands. He hugged Padme tighter and then jumped to the ground, with the young woman securely held in his arms.

Amidala yelped and glared at him when they landed lightly. Anakin gave her a roguish grin in response. He'll be paying for this stunt later. He just knew it.

"You can scream at me to your heart's content later, love." Anakin murmured and lightly kissed her hair, inhaling a bit of her fragrance. He released the exasperated senator and headed towards the overgrown insect which wanted to use Obi-Wan as a chew toy.

"Need a hand, master?" the young man asked, grinning insufferably.

A mounted local chose that moment to enter the fray. The overgrown insect was charging at Kenobi, spear tip crackling with energy pointed at the Jedi's back. Vader smirked and waved his hand at the local, the Force guided by his gesture. The Geonosian flew from his mount and struck the side of the insect. The animal chittered in irritation before snapping at the little thing that dared attack it. That was the last conscious action it took.

Because while it was distracted, Vader used his powers to pick up the spear that was carried by the unfortunate and propelled it at the beast with acceleration rivaling that of a starship's engine. The needle-sharp tip slammed into the Felucian beast's head. The pike was hurled with enough force to emerge from the other side of the animal's thick skull, covered blood and brains. For a moment, the insectoid stood frozen in place. Its legs twitched randomly a few times before it crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut off.

Kenobi raised an eyebrow and went to join his apprentice and the senator. If Obi-Wan's expression was anything to go by, he wanted to ask Vader a few pointed questions.

**=KoF=**

* * *

Count Dooku was using every diplomatic trick he had learned to placate the Neimoidian viceroy and was tempted to add a few doses of Force enhanced persuasion to his significant skills. Because the damn overgrown toad was refusing to listen. Even with the damn Jedi sneaking all over the Arena, Amidala was likely to get her foolish head blow off in few minutes, when the droids were sent in force.

Besides the Trade Federation envoy was a distraction, which was preventing Dooku from concentrating on the young Jedi in the arena. Something curious had happened down there and he was curious to find out what.

Obi-Wan's apprentice had suddenly grown in power, not particularly surprising if the boy had opened his eyes and used the anger he undoubtedly felt at the situation. However the Darkness Dooku could feel from him... Skywalker was literally reeking of the Dark Side, or at least he did a minute ago. Not something that one would expect from someone just grasping it and trying to use it for the first time.

The former Jedi shook his head. That boy becoming interesting. Too bad that he was going to die. Soon.

"Patience my friend, patience. She will die." said Dooku, once he returned his attention to the Neimoidian.

Below them seven droidekas rolled towards the center of the arena.

**=KoF=**

* * *

"Obi-Wan. Good to see you again, old man."

"Anakin..." muttered Kenobi. The older Jedi was lost for words.

This was not the young, headstrong padawan who the older Jedi had trained and raised. There was unbelievable power slumbering within Skywalker… not to mention the power of the Dark Side that was shrouding him like a cloak, though it was slowly turning grayer, with strands of light leaking in.

Obi-Wan could almost feel the warmth of Anakin's power on his skin. It was as if he was close, too close to a star. At the same time he could sense the chilling embrace of the Dark side upon his apprentice too. Which was even stronger. This was nothing like the young man that he was led into the arena a few short minutes ago.

"Anakin, what happened to you?" exclaimed the usually calm Jedi.

"It's a long story, old man. We have more immediate concerns."

Anakin pointed at the seven droidekas which were rolling in their direction. "There is whole droid army on the planet with a lot of the tin cans hidden under the arena."

"Ah. It's one of those days then." deadpanned Kenobi.

"You have no idea." a ghost of genuine smile tugged the corner of Anakin's mouth. "Besides, this time it's your fault for getting us into this mess."

Kenobi felt a fondness in Anakin's voice, mixed with a hint of nostalgia. As if his apprentice hadn't seen him in years.

Obi-Wan felt the Force stir around Anakin. The droids which were in the process of surrounding them and unfolding from their fast travel configuration released a loud electronic whine before it was drowned by the screech of twisting metal.

The older Jedi could feel the Force flowing through his young friend, who had his right hand raised. Anakin's open palm slammed shut, forming a fist. In the same moment, the machines were suddenly suspended in midair and crushed as if by squeezed by giant press. Their ruined remains were left to fall on the sands of the arena.

Kenobi just shook his head at the feat displayed by his apprentice. He would love to hear Anakin's explanation. While Skywalker was strong, he had seldom displayed anything coming even close to this. The bearded Jedi glanced to the young man and woman to his right, curiosity written all over his face.

Obi-Wan's eyes widened. He must have been blind not to see it immediately. The storm of emotions those two felt towards each other was almost overwhelming, almost a physical thing he could touch if he came closer to them.

"Anakin, we'll be having a long conversation after the current unpleasantries are over." grumbled Obi-Wan.

Skywalker just shrugged. That was way down on his list of priorities right now. All he was concerned with was keeping Padme safe.

**=KoF=**

* * *

In the stands, Dooku was watching the two Jedi with unreadable expression on his face. He could feel immense danger from the boy.

The former Jedi was so concentrated on the happenings in the arena that he did not sense the man who sneaked in the VIP lodge, before a purple lightsaber blade hissed to life in front of Jango Fett.

Dooku turned around, without showing any trace of surprise.

"Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us."

"This party is over." declared the Jedi Master.

Dozens of Jedi revealed themselves on the stands a with few entering the arena from the side entrances. They activated their lightsabers, while relying on the Force to panic the locals and cause them to fly away from the coliseum. All the while, most of them were giving wary glances to their comrades on the arena.

"Brave, but foolish my Jedi friend." smiled Dooku. "You are impossibly outnumbered." There was undeniable smugness in the voice of the separatist leader.

"I don't think so." Windu deadpanned.

"We'll see." Dooku smirked.

Behind the back of the Jedi Master could be heard the sounds of metal legs marching over the stone floor. A group of heavy battle droids emerged from the tunnel. Their right arms shifted, transforming into blasters and they opened fire. The machines were joined by the bounty hunter who used his flame thrower to force Windu off the stands.

**=KoF=**

* * *

When the Jedi revealed themselves, Vader rolled his eyes. If it was not for Yoda and the army of clones who would be here soon, this would have been the death knell for the whole Order with the "best" of them getting themselves killed. Bloody fools! And to think that now he was one of them. Technically at least.

"Bloody idiots!" Vader muttered. He threw his hands forward, straight at the entrance from which he and his companions were led to the arena. He could sense a battalion of droids marching towards them from there. By the time Windu was forced to jump to the ground and the battle was starting, Anakin had felt the stone walls of the tunnel. He could sense all their strong points and imperfections, down to the tinniest flaw. He tugged with the Force at precisely the wrong places and the entrance collapsed burying the lead elements of the battalion and forcing the rest of the machines to search for alternative route. That would slow them down a bit.

Scores of Jedi, with their multi colored weapons blazing, were charging the droids pouring in the arena. With the main entrance collapsed, the warrior monks were divided in two equal groups and attacked the machines who were flooding the coliseum from the remaining pair of tunnels. Anakin's actions gave the Jedi the upper hand for the time being, because their enemies could not get in a big enough force to overwhelm them.

Vader used the Force to pick up from the ground the broken piece of the pillar that almost squashed down Kenobi, a few minutes ago. He used it as a battering ram to flatten massive numbers of enemies, thus buying even more time for Yoda to arrive with the reinforcements.

He noticed how the locals brought out one of their kriffing sound cannons, which was moving on a repulsorlift platform. Two of the Geonosians were laughing in their language as they opened fire. The first shot went wide, only covering few Jedi with sand.

The second however was better aimed. Or the weapon's crew just had plain dumb luck on their side. The sound wave picked up an unfortunate human Jedi who screamed for a moment before his insides were shredded by the resonating sound-waves. His flight was short lived. He and the sound-wave struck one of the remaining pillars in the middle of the arena. The resulting explosion rained pieces of man and stone over the battling forces.

That was the last action of the cannon crew before their lives were extinguished. The piece of pillar which Vader was using as a makeshift weapon was thrown at their weapon emplacement with enough force to obliterate it and the pair of beings manning it.

Vader looked around. To his growing horror, but total lack of surprise, he found that Padme had once again hijacked a hover-sled, that was pulled by a four legged reptile with obscenely long snout. She was riding the animal and raining fire upon the droids with a blaster liberated from some disabled machine.

Anakin shook his head muttering something about stubborn and suicidal women, while he ran after her. One of the Jedi he raced by threw him a spare lightsaber.

"Thanks!" he shouted to the woman who was busy slicing through a group of droids.

The time traveler watched a deja vu, when the beastie Padme was ridding was shot from under her and she was thrown through the air. He acted more on instinct than a conscious thought and was able to catch her in a gentle telekinetic grip. He carefully put her on the ground near the sled.

Padme gave him a grateful smile that melted his cold heart before she took cover. Anakin sprinted to her side and took defensive position to protect her from stray blaster bolts, before revering right back the efficient Sith Lord he was. He never realized that he had a foolish teenage grin on his face, which was at odds with his blazing yellow eyes.

"Obi-Wan, come here!" he shouted to his mentor.

**=KoF=**

* * *

"I have a prior appointment!" Obi-Wan quipped in answer to Anakin's shout.

Kenobi, who had received a lightsaber from one of the other Jedi was busy dealing with a quartet of super droids. He deflected a hail of blaster bolts away, sending few of them back towards one of the killing machines. Its armor plating held couple of the energy beams but that weakened it enough so the next blew through the alloy protecting the robot and blew its innards. The machine whined pitifully and tumbled to the ground in a smoking heap.

Obi-Wan darted forward, coming near enough to the next droid to slice off its right arm and slash through part of its torso. He moved in such a way that the crippled machine was between him and its two fellows.

Kenobi threw away one of the pairs of still standing Super Battle droids with a mighty telekinetic push and finished off the damaged one which left only one enemy in the immediate vicinity. The last robot desperately shot at the Jedi with its weapon only to be blown apart by its own deflected blaster fire.

Obi-Wan saw that his fellow Jedi had things more or less under control and made his way to his wayward apprentice.

"You shouted." Kenobi grinned to Anakin who had taken defensive stance over senator Amidala.

"Cover me for few seconds, old man."

Anakin deactivated his lightsaber and concentrated, while Obi-Wan was deflecting any shot coming at them. The arena shook when one after another the remaining two entrances collapsed burying countless droids.

"Now, that's better." Skywalker smirked and took few deep gulps of air. The Force energy he used to bring down the tunnels was obviously tiring him.

Which made Obi-Wan relax a bit. At least his apprentice hadn't become inexhaustible juggernaut while he was away. Just apparently fell in love, flirted with the Dark Side too and got an order of magnitude or two more powerful...

Meanwhile, the rest of the Jedi seeing what happened, redoubled their efforts to eliminate the deployed war machines.

"Now, Anakin, I think you owe me an explanation." Obi-Wan said after seeing that the immediate danger was gone for the moment.

Skywalker and Padme looked at each other. Kenobi didn't miss the bit of gild in the Senator's eyes.

Anakin on the other side, had an infuriating smirk on his face. As if the obvious ways he had broken the code didn't concern him in any way, shape or form. Which was true, though Kenobi didn't know it at the time. After all, if Anakin was actually kicked out of the Order, he could marry the senator with much less scrutiny or any hiding. Besides in such a case he could marry Padme without hiding. Though that would be revelation coming at a later date.

"You want to know what changed in me, master?" asked Anakin.

The young man smiled mischievously and knelt next to Senator Amidala. He carefully helped her to her feet, then gently cupped her face with his left hand and passionately kissed her.

She stiffened for a moment, obviously surprised by the brazen action. Then Padme leaned into the man she apparently cared for and returned his kiss, momentarily forgetting the chaos around them.

Obi-Wan stared at the pair with a hanging mouth. The older man felt like his jaw was about to hit the ground. Yep. Anakin wasn't caring about what anyone was kriffing thinking about his forbidden relationship.

"Why me?" Obi-Wan muttered, feeling like slamming his head into the nearest flat surface. Repeatedly.

Around them, many of the Jedi who no longer had droids to dealt with took a note of Anakin's actions. While a lot were frowning with disapproval, most of the young ones were giving the couple either approving looks or small smiles. A few enthusiasts were whistling with approval too.


	2. Chapter 1 Part 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. It belongs to Disney. I make no money from this story.**

**AN: This part was betaed by kalvasflam on the Space Battles forums! Thank you very much!**

**Chapter 1: There is no Peace, only Passion**

**=KoF=**

**Part 1**

* * *

**Great Arena**

**Geonosis**

Jango Fett shot a long jet of liquid fire from his flamethrower, forcing the black Jedi to jump down from the stand. Behind him a platoon of Super Battle droids were deploying in attempt to protect the CIS leaders.

The bounty hunter grimaced after taking a hasty look around.

There were Jedi everywhere. So far they had no trouble holding their own against his client's droids. No surprise there. The war machines were forced to fight their way through choke-points, which were held by the lightsaber wielding idiots.

He glanced at the arena below. Fett had felt the tremors when one of the Jedi brought down the main tunnels over the head of the advancing droids. It was no surprise that the few robots which had made their way on the bloody sand were being dispatched with ease. He shook his head. The CIS might have to level the whole arena if they wanted to deal with this Jedi infestation.

Jango gave a slight nod to his son. Perhaps it was time to cut off his looses and get away while they still could. He had a bad feeling about this whole mess. Or perhaps not. After all, there was a whole droid army on the planet, most of which was stationed nearby too, which was the important thing.

He could hear the distinct sound of the rapid fire blasters used by destroyer droids. Obviously at least few of those had managed to deploy themselves in entrances leading to the stands. Fett looked right and saw a young human Jedi being cut down by a barrage of blaster fire. An even younger Zabrak female was forced to jump down from the stands to avoid the same fate.

With that path cleared, a pair of droidekas rolled out and deployed outside the entrance, protecting it while a column of Super Battle droids marched out. That was a scene that would repeat itself all over the stands, and soon enough the Jedi would find themselves pushed down into the arena, with the droids holding the higher ground.

For a moment Fett considered jumping into the arena and engaging the Jedi but quickly discarded that idea. There were too many of them down there, and not enough droids engaging them. He was not feeling particularly suicidal today. Many of the Jedi were either finishing the droids in the arena or making impossible leaps and jumping up into the stands to engage the robots there. Others were staring at something…

Jango frowned. There was a couple down in the arena who were making out in the middle of the battle. He wondered whether he should admire their ballsy disregard for the mayhem around them or decry them as idiots…

**=KoF=**

* * *

"Anakin! What in the name of the Force are you doing?!" exclaimed an appalled Kenobi.

The said young man disengaged his lips from those of the blushing Senator and turned towards his master. Skywalker smirked at the Jedi Knight, showing that he regretted nothing.

"I think it's obvious, master." deadpanned the padawan. "You know, when a boy loves a girl..." Skywalker trailed off and grinned at the scandalized older man.

Anakin looked like he was ready to needle the Jedi with his brand new love life.

"Anakin! Enough!" growled Padme, effectively shutting him up.

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow at that. The Jedi Knight looked at the Senator. He knew what a can of worms their burgeoning relationship was going out to be. Further, Kenobi had the nagging feeling that any attempt to force Anakin to leave Amidala would end very badly for everyone.

Yet, it appeared that the young woman from Naboo was able to keep his apprentice in check. No small feat. 'And it might help you keep your sanity...' muttered a small voice in the back of his head.

"You are aware how much trouble you are in, right?" grumbled Kenobi, in the tone of voice he usually used when his apprentice pulled one of his stunts. Granted this one took the cake.

"Yep. I know." came the nonchalant answer.

"And you apparently don't care." muttered Obi-Wan.

**=KoF=**

* * *

'Oh, you have no idea, old man.' thought Vader. For the first time in his life he had his priorities straight.

Padme was number one. Dealing with Sidious and the whole war mess was second. Clearing up the Republic of all the corruption and inefficient bureaucracy, or preferably turning it into an Empire done right was third. And any trouble with the Jedi was way down the list…

"However, we have some more immediate concerns." said Vader and nodded at the stands, where the droids were pouring from multiple entrances.

A phalanx of droidekas was slowly pushing the Jedi back. The destroyer droids were using their shields to tank the shots deflected by the Force Adepts while they unleashed their considerable firepower upon the Republic's guardians.

Behind them, Super Battle droids and hordes of B1s were advancing and adding their weapons fire to the onslaught against the Jedi. In just few minutes, the force users were pushed down to the arena, while hundreds of droids pointed their weapons at them.

The machines were aided by dozens of locals, who flied above all and took potshots at distracted Jedi.

"This could have gone better." muttered Obi-Wan.

"Hardly." answered Vader.

If it wasn't for Yoda, who should be making his presence known any moment now, the Jedi on Geonosis were doomed.

Kriff it all! He had forgotten how badly most of the Jedi handled themselves in the opening months of the war! This mess on Geonosis was a case in point.

"Master Windu!" Dooku's voice echoed all over the arena.

"Here we go again." grunted Anakin.

"You've fought gallantly! This was a battle worthy of recognition!" the former Jedi paused for a moment looking at the droids on the stands, whose numbers were swelling as he spoke. "We have both the numbers and the high ground. Despite your spirited performance, it is finished."

The Sith Lord looked pensive. Even a bit sad.

"Surrender, my friends, and your lives will be spared."

Master Windu glared at the man whom he had once considered a friend.

"We won't be hostages to be bargained with, Dooku." declared the Vaapad master.

"I'm sorry you chose to end it this way, my friend."

All around the Jedi, the CIS droids took aim and waited for the firing order.

"It isn't an end, Dooku." Vader's powerful voice echoed around the arena. "It all just beginning."

Many eyes fell on the padawan, wondering if he had gone insane.

Anakin just smiled and pointed upwards with his left hand.

A tiro of Acclamators could be seen descending from the heavens. Scores of LAATs, chock full with combat ready clones were racing under the assault ships.

The short form of Yoda could be made in the troop compartment of the lead craft. He was surrounded by two squads of heavily armed clones.

**=KoF=**

* * *

**High Orbit over Geonosis**

**A few minutes earlier**

The moment the Republic fleet exited from hyperspace, Yoda felt a tremor passing through the Force. The veil of the Dark Side, which was clinging onto everything shifted.

The future felt a bit brighter, yet somehow it was more uncertain than ever.

Whatever was happening, its source was on the planet below.

Yoda concentrated. He opened his senses fully and winced. He could feel every one of his Jedi who were dying on the world they were orbiting.

At least he had no problem pinpointing the exact location of his people. Yoda gave the necessary coordinates to the Clone Commander who was standing to his right and headed towards the docking bay.

His presence was needed elsewhere. There was a mystery needing unraveling.

While he made its way to a transport, Yoda let the Force flow through him. For the first time in a very long time, decades maybe, perhaps even centuries, the Grand Master of the Order could feel the Force whispering to him in somewhat clear manner.

He knew it in his ancient bones. He would have an incredibly important decision to make. Soon. One that would be vital for the future of all Jedi.

Soon enough, the Jedi Master was on a LAAT, which was descending through the atmosphere. Even from this height he could make up the form of a giant arena, which was partly obscured by the smoke of raging fires. As it came closer, he could clearly see that many of the Jedi who had come to Geonosis were still alive. He silently thanked the Force for that small mercy.

He saw someone pointing up. In the first instant, the ancient Jedi didn't recognize that person. Oh, he was familiar, yet there was something different. Darker.

Skywalker... whispered the Force.

For a single instant, the Grandmaster was able to see clearly. The threads of Fate, of the future itself, were wrapped around the young man. He was like an unlit beacon in the Force. There was an ocean of power slumbering within the boy, just waiting for a nudge before being awakened.

There. At that moment Yoda knew that Anakin Skywalker was truly the Chosen One. However, that knowledge gave him no peace of mind. For the first time, he doubted the exact meaning of the prophecy, for Skywalker was wearing darkness as a snug cloak around himself.

The short Jedi took a deep breath and calmed himself. Yoda knew he should be careful in how he dealt with the boy. Everything was going to hang on the way he would handle the boy. The Force itself was adamant about that. It promised a great opportunity and even greater danger.

Then the LAAT carrying him was over the arena and Yoda had no more time to ponder the future. He needed to concentrate on the here and now.

"Around the Jedi, a perimeter create." he ordered.

Four of the transports darted towards the arena, forming a protective circle around the men and women there. The rest of the gunships concentrated on the droids holding position within the stands.

Another six of the heavily armed craft unleashed their fury upon the CIS forces. Missiles blew apart groups of droids. Rapid turret fire shredded helpless machines, while long emerald beams cut in two whole rows of the robots. Within seconds, the stands were turned into a sea of fire, in which nothing should have been able to survive, yet the gunships didn't relent in their assault. They were joined by the blaster fire of the clones deploying from the transports in the arena, while the Jedi were busy retrieving the wounded before embarking.

Anakin grabbed Padme and leaped in the nearest LAAT, with Kenobi racing on his heels.

A stray blaster bolt struck one of the clones covering them, throwing the man on his back. Skywalker used his telekinesis to retrieve the body of the stricken solider before the rest of the clones jumped on the transport and the craft rose over the arena.

**=KoF=**

* * *

Despite the perceived effectiveness of the airstrike, the stands were still full with battle droids which were shooting at the retreating LAATs. Below, on the VIP stand, Count Dooku was looking at the retreating ships with a frown on his face. It would have been much better if Yoda had been a minute or two slower. With more Jedi dieing here, the Sith plans would go smoother.

No matter. During the course of the war, those who survive that day's battle will be dealt with.

The Sith Lord winced. He could feel the Force warning him about imminent danger. He had to get out of Geonosis. Soon.

But first, the plans for his masters secret weapon must be secured.

Dooku turned around and disappeared in the tunnel behind the stand and was soon followed by Jango Fett and his son.

The bounty hunter decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He wasn't paid to take part in a full scale war. Not yet anyway.

He waved to his son to follow him and headed to his ship.

**=KoF=**

* * *

**LAAT transport**

**en route to GAR staging area**

**Geonosis**

Anakin was holding Padme with his right arm, steadying her, while the transport was maneuvering wildly in an attempt to throw off the fire of unsuppressed AA emplacements.

Crimson blaster bolts were spat at the Republic craft as they left the arena. One of the escorting gunships was unlucky and ran straight into a barrage which shredded its main body and sent it tumbling towards the ground. In response, two of its wing mates strafed the weapon emplacement, leaving a burning crater in their wake.

The group of transports and heavily armed LAATs flew over a spaceport dug in the rocky ground of Geonosis. They opened fire on the landed ships, with missiles and lances of pure energy raking the tough hulls of the Separatists craft.

The command sections of Lukrehulk battleships were all but invulnerable from such a puny attack, but the stings of the Republic gunships were more than enough to dispatch a score of lighter ships, especially once Vader pointed out that those things were vulnerable to hits under their fuel tanks.

When they reached the staging area, most of the Jedi disembarked and took command of clone units which they led into battle.

"Pilot, relay to command that our air assets must prioritize the CIS mobile missile launchers. They are extreme threat to our armored units." ordered Vader.

"Right away, sir!"

Kenobi gave him sidelong look, wondering how his apprentice knew that.

**=KoF=**

* * *

**CIS Primary Command Center**

**Geonosis**

"I don't know how the Republic managed to gather such a huge army so fast. They are too many of them. We need to retreat." Dooku spoke to the assembled CIS leaders, lacing his voice with the Force, willing them to comply with his words at face value.

In truth, if the Confederation forces stood their ground and fought, they had a very good chance of winning. Such a defeat would end the war too soon. By the Force! If he and Sidious, didn't manage the war carefully, the CIS might win anyway. Military that is.

As it was right now, the Confederation had neither the numbers or the apparatus in place to rule the Republic if it defeated the GAR. To make matters worse, there were a lot of powerful systems such as Corellia which were neutral right now. If the CIS won too soon and easily, those wild card could do anything, rendering an early military victory a Pyrrhic one. At best.

When all was said and done, the Clone Wars which had just begun, were not only an elaborate trap for Jedi. The conflict was in fact merely a setting up stage for the future Galactic Empire. That was the end game. Because the Sith aim was to not to merely destroy the Republic and take their vengeance upon the Jedi, that would be relatively easy right now. All they would need was to let the CIS win.

However, they had learned their lesson. Once, long ago, the ancient Sith had conquered the Republic but were unable to hold it for more than few centuries. But if the Republic willingly transformed into an Empire under the strain of the war... Well, that was another game all together…

"This is not good at all!" whined Viceroy Gunrey.

"We need to get our ships in orbit!" added one of his aides.

With that the Neimoidians left the command center, followed by most of the CIS leaders who were heading towards their own vessels. Luckily for them, the Republic Navy didn't have the planet blockaded. Yet.

Soon, only Poggle the Lesser and few of the locals remained.

"I'm sending my warriors to the catacombs." he said in his clicking language.

"My master won't allow the Republic to get away with this treachery." declared the Sith Lord.

The most ironic part of this day was that the ones who started the war was the Republic. Two of their Jedi as well as a well known Senator were captured as spies. And when the CIS were about to dispense justice on those people as was their right, the Republic unleashed their secret army upon them.

This day would be a public relations coup for the Confederation, which was the wronged party.

"The Jedi must not find out about our secret weapon!" declared Poggle the Lesser and walked to a nearby computer terminal.

He downloaded the designs of what would one day become known as the Death Star and scrubbed all traces of the date from the system. Then he walked to Dooku and gave him the data disc.

"If they found those designs we are doomed." muttered the local noble.

"I'll take them to Coruscant. The designs will be much safer there, in my masters hands." stated Dooku.

He nodded to his friend and headed towards a nearby dock. From there he would take a speeder and escorts, and travel to his ship.


	3. Chapter 1 Part 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. It belongs to Disney. I make no money from this story.**

**AN: This part was betaed by Actualize, ****on the Space Battles forums! Thank you very much!**

**Knight of the Force**

**=KoF=**

**Chapter 1: There is no Peace, only Passion**

**=KoF=**

**Part 2**

**LAAT transport, near the Republic LZ, Geonosis**

"So, you two..." Kenobi trailed off, not exactly sure how to start that particular conversation.

The CIS forces shooting their transport didn't help the matter either.

"What about us, old man?" quipped Anakin.

Obi-Wan could sense profound amusement coming from his padawan while Amidala was a bit uncomfortable with the whole thing. Yet, he could feel a fierce determination within the young woman. She wasn't going to make this easy for the Jedi.

Kenobi wasn't surprised by that. He knew the Senator well enough to expect nothing less from her.

"Pilot, break left and head up that old river bed." ordered Vader with a voice accustomed to command.

"Roger, sir!" answered the clone, turning the transport in that direction.

"What's that about, Anakin?" asked Kenobi.

"Can't you sense him, Obi-Wan? Dooku is that way."

The Jedi Knight frowned, closing his eyes and concentrating on the currents of the Force, clearing his mind of everything else.

It was something very hard to do with the raging storm of emotions emanating from the young pair by his side.

Nevertheless, that didn't deter him and he soon was able to feel a familiar presence in the Force. He was well obscured, but Dooku's could be felt somewhere ahead.

Moments later, the LAAT flew over the end of the river bed and raced above dunes made of fine red sand.

Ahead of them a man riding a speeder could be seen, flanked by two fighters

"Shoot them down!" snapped Vader.

While not as satisfying as doing it himself, seeing Dooku blown up would be good enough.

"Sorry, sir! We are out of missiles!"

Vader swore in Huttese until Padme's elbow poked him painfully in the ribs, shutting him up..

Obi-Wan frowned at that interaction. The bouts of anger, almost fury, which his padawan exhibited were troubling, yet he couldn't help it but notice the way Amidala was able to calm Anakin with simple action. It was almost admirable.

After all, Kenobi was well acquainted with how stubborn and troublesome his padawan was.

"Sorry, love." muttered Anakin.

He turned his head towards the pilots and ordered: "Try to close the distance.."

"We'll need help to deal with Dooku!" protested Padme.

"Anakin and I can handle him!" stated Kenobi.

"Damn right!" added Vader.

That bastard owed him a hand and he was going to collect. Again.

**=KoF=**

Dooku was well aware who was behind him because the Force was whispering dire warnings in his ears. That was the reason that he had given orders for the redeployment of few assets.

Few battalions of droids, which were supposed to evacuate with the CIS ships, were sent to stall the main GAR force and the Jedi leading them, while a particular asset was recalled to cover his retreat if it was necessary.

The Count received the confirmation that his backup was in place soon after the gunship with the Jedi started closing on his speeder. He ordered his escorts to attack their pursuers. At the very least that would buy him time to reach the dock.

The agile fighters looped back and opened fire on the gunship. Dooku sensed a surge of anger from behind and frowned. Now the Force was warning him that something deadly was approaching.

Calling for help may have proved to be the prudent course of action after all...

**=KoF=**

Vader had another sense of Deja Vu. The two fighters opened fire, and moments later flak explosions shook the transport.

Padme, who had moved out of Anakin's reach after poking him in the ribs stumbled and fell from the side door. A clone lost balance too and tumbled out after her.

"Padme!" Vader shouted in fear, mixed with a heavy dose of anger.

He could feel her being dazzled but thought that she was all right beyond that. At least this time he knew that she would be all right. Yet, he thought, it wouldn't hurt if she had few more troopers looking after her. After all, she had a bigger knack for getting into trouble than even he did.

Vader used the Force to grab the squad of clones within the troop compartment and shouted at them: "Keep her safe at all cost!"

Then he carefully ejected them from the speeding gunship and let them tumble over a sand dune they overflew. He could feel that his stunt had pissed them off, but he knew that the clones would follow his order anyway. At least all of them were in one piece.

"Anakin! That was reckless!" shouted Kenobi.

"They are all right." shrugged Vader. "Padme is a trouble magnet. She may need the additional help."

"Senator Amidala obviously affects your judgment. Are you aware that you might be expelled from the order for your relationship with her?" asked Obi-Wan in much calmer tone.

One of these days, that boy was going to be the death of him.

"Is that so?" Vader chuckled.

Once, such a threat would have been terrifying. Now it was a source of amusement.

Another burst of enemy fire shook the LAAT despite the efforts of the pilot.

"A moment, old man." Vader grunted and closed his eyes.

Kenobi could see the Force whipping around his padawan as the young man grasped it.

Outside one of the fighters was pushed down by invisible wave of power and it was torn to pieces when it struck the rock strewn ground.

The other jerked up in surprise but that didn't help him. A telekinetic push sent it flying into the side of the shallow canyon which they had entered.

Skywalker's efforts were rewarded by another spectacular explosion.

Vader took a deep breath. He should have done that before Padme fell out. She could have hurt herself this time! He couldn't just rely on hopes that everything would happen the same way even if he changed nothing else.

Besides, that wasn't his way. He had been given a second chance and he was going to grasp it with both hands! Damn the consequences to the deepest pits of the Nine Corellian Hells! This time he was going to shape his own future!

"I don't care if the Council expels me or not, Obi-Wan. For the first time in my life I have my priorities straight. If they make me chose between Padme and the Jedi, I would choose her every time."

Kenobi was stunned by the utter conviction in his padawan's words. Despite his reckless actions, Anakin had a sense of maturity around him: while there were traces of the young man he knew very well, they were subdued.

Obi-Wan understood that Skywalker was saying the absolute truth. He felt a pit forming in his stomach. When the battle was over and the Council met to discuss Anakin's behavior, things would become ugly. He just knew it.

He wanted to scream at Anakin, to harangue and push and persuade, FORCE, him to change his mind, but it was clear as a day that mere words wouldn't sway him.

Obi-Wan knew his padawan. Unlike for a lot of Jedi, an expulsion would be more of an inconvenience than anything else. The young man was a mechanical genius who had been making a life for himself before joining the Order.

The Jedi would be the ones who would lose the most.

"Obi-Wan!" shouted Anakin, throwing him from his thoughts. "Stop meditating! We're here!"

Kenobi shook his head and looked around. The LAAT was nearing a metal ramp extending from the side of a tall rock formation. He saw Dooku's speeder disappearing inside.

Moments later the transport had come to a stop, hovering over the ramp. The Jedi jumped out and ran after the fallen Jedi. They had taken just few steps inside before Anakin grabbed his master and stopped their headlong charge.

"That's new." muttered Vader. He could feel Dooku and three other beings, all rather strong in in the Force.

Anakin grimaced. He was confident that he could take the trio he was sensing, but that would leave Obi-Wan against Dooku, and Vader knew very well how that particular duel was doomed to end. Further, he wasn't confident that as weakened as he was, he was up to facing Dooku and whichever of those three mysterious beings were still alive when the Sith Lord dealt with Kenobi.

All things considered, it was good that Yoda would be appearing soon. Or so he hoped.

"You sense them too, don't you, Obi-Wan?" asked Vader.

Kenobi, who had been surprised by the way Anakin abruptly halted them, nodded. He had felt that Dooku wasn't alone moment after his padawan did. Which itself was surprising: Usually Skywalker was the one charging headlong into danger.

"I do. We need to work together." said the Jedi Knight.

"I'll take the three on the left while you entertain your old friend." muttered Anakin. "Unless you want to leave Dooku to me and deal with those three?" he pointed at the wall behind which the Count and his associates were waiting.

Kenobi stood frozen for a moment, deliberating their strategy. He knew that facing Dooku alone was a very bad idea, almost as bad as leaving his padawan face a trio of Dark Jedi or worse, Sith. On the other hand, despite the power Anakin was suddenly exhibiting, he didn't want his padawan to face Dooku...

"We'll have to hold them off long enough for reinforcements to arrive."

Vader nodded. it had been a very long time since he had wholeheartedly agreed with his former master.

They walked warily into the small hangar and found Dooku standing next to a bunch of what appeared to be empty fuel cells. To his right, three men waited with inactive lightsabers in their hands.

One was a Twi'lek with bright yellow, almost white skin. The next was a brown haired human, with face resembling a bird of prey. The third was a blue skinned Duros, whose huge eyes held unnatural coldness.

"I'll take the three on the left!" declared Vader and charged the Dark Jedi.

"Wait, Anakin!" Obi-Wan shouted a warning.

Skywalker was halfway to the surprised men when Dooku raised his hand and unleashed a torrent of blue lighting.

Everyone expected that the brash padawan would be hurled at the wall behind him by the onslaught. The attack halted his progress but that was all it did to Skywalker. To their shock, Vader not only caught the onslaught on the blade of lightsaber, but redirected a part of its power towards the Duros. The Dark Jedi wasn't fast enough in activating his lightsaber and bore the full brunt of the attack. He was thrown into the air and bounced off the side of Dooku's ship before landing, unconscious, on the ground in a smoking heap..

Dooku frowned at the unexpected development. He nodded to his still standing Acolytes: "Take him!"

They wasted no time and activated their blades before charging Anakin. He smiled grimly and met their attack.

Dooku tried to electrocute Kenobi, but the Jedi Knight absorbed the lighting attack with his blade.

"I don't think so." muttered Kenobi.

Dooku gave him a small smile before drawing his lightsaber, which came to life with the characteristic snap-hiss. Jedi and Sith clashed in a whirlwind of azure and crimson light.

Besides them Vader was having fun.

This was the first time in over two decades engaging in a lightsaber duel whole. He was no longer constrained by the kriffing suit, and, while the lack of the cybernetic limbs left him a bit weaker physically, that weakness was more than made up by the advantages he had regained.

Vader's only real disadvantage was that for two decades he had relied predominantly on overwhelming strength in combat – something he no longer had on his side. He had to remember how to use more technique in his combat style, something he was enjoying immensely.

His borrowed emerald blade sizzled when it met a meter and half long pillar of crimson energy. At the same time, Anakin sent a telekinetic wave which staggered his second opponent.

Skywalker used the moment he had gained to concentrate on the other opponent. He parried a slash aimed at literally disarming him. He took a chance by locking the lightsabers together and stepping within his opponent's guard. He pushed the blades to the right and, letting go of the hilt of his weapon with his left hand, struck the Twi'lek in the face. With a fist he had enhanced with the Force.

There was a satisfying crunching sound. His opponent's grunted in pain and lost his balance, staggering to the right. the Dark Jedi still managed to keep the lightsabers locked for a moment longer, preventing Anakin from following with another attack.

Then the other human was upon Skywalker, leaving the Twi'lek to regain his balance in safety.

Beside them, Dooku was taunting Obi-Wan, who was hard pressed to keep the Count's blade from biting into his flesh.

Anakin attacked the man facing him with a series of powerful strikes. He was trying to overwhelm his opponent with brute strength before the Twi'lek, who was already dashing their way, rejoined the battle.

Vader battered aside the Dark Jedi's blade and used the momentum of his swing to rotate in place and deliver an even more powerful attack.

In almost the same moment a lot of things happened.

Anakin's green blade sliced through his human opponent's chest, sending him falling backwards. The Twi'lek attacked Vader, nearly taking off his left hand. Only the man's experience allowed him to twist aside at the last possible instant.

The Duros had shaken off the shock of the Sith Lightning and was getting back on his feet.

But most importantly for Skywalker and his Jedi Master, Dooku was able to breach Kenobi's defenses.

They had their weapons locked in a contest of strength when the Sith twisted his wrists, releasing the blades. Obi-Wan had an instant of horrified realization, when his lightsaber was torn out of his hands. Then, for a fraction of the second, the crimson blade of the Count passed through the biceps on the Jedi's left arm. Kenobi shouted in pain.

Dooku followed his attack with a simple slash, cutting through the Jedi's thigh muscle leaving him to crumble helplessly.

The Sith Lord flourished his weapon and prepared to strike down Kenobi once and for all.

At the same time, Vader found himself facing two opponents, both between him and Obi-Wan. He was well aware that he couldn't reach Kenobi in time.


	4. Chapter 1 Part 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. It belongs to Disney. I make no money from this story.**

**AN: This part was betaed by ir_fane on the Space Battles forums! Thank you very much!**

**Knight of the Force**

**=KoF=**

**Chapter 1: There is no Peace, only Passion**

**=KoF=**

**Part 3**

**Docking bay, CIS installation, Geonosis**

The part of Vader that was the shell of a man left after Mustafar wanted to see Kenobi die again. There was no question about that.

Yet, the former Sith Lord had merged with the essence of the young Skywalker whose body he inhabited.

That echo still saw Obi-Wan as a mentor, the older brother who raised him.

For the moment he stood still, wondering what to do. He looked between his opponents and what he saw prompted him to action.

Dooku raised his lightsaber above his head and prepared to strike a finishing blow on the helpless Jedi.

Vader reached through the Force. Anakin's actions were sensed by the Dark Jedi, however they believed that he was about to attack them directly.

The men gathered the Force around them, ready to counteract any attack send their way. Instead, Vader grabbed the corpse of the human he had cut down and hurled it at the older Sith Lord.

Dooku reacted in time, blasting the limp body with a telekinetic blast, and sent it flying to the left.

Nevertheless, that distraction did its job. Kenobi lived for a few more moments, and the attention of the Dark Jedi was redirected for an instant.

Obi-Wan used that opportunity to roll away from the Sith Lord, buying himself a few more precious seconds.

Anakin gave one last glance to his mentor and moved. He jumped at the man to his right, simultaneously using telekinesis to grab the blade which belonged to the man he killed. Vader's lightsaber crashed into the weapon of the Twi'lek with tremendous power, forcing the man to step back.

The Duros tried to flank Skywalker, but had to parry an unexpected attack. Vader had just flung the dead man's scarlet blade straight at him.

With his flank secured for few seconds, Anakin pressed the attack. He was mere moments if he wanted to reach Kenobi before Dooku could deliver a coup de grace. Skywalker executed a strong diagonal slash which forced his opponent to take a step back and to the right.

Dooku glanced at the teen who had killed one of his men and decided that the padawan won't reach him in time. He was ready to dash at Kenobi and finish him once and for all, but wanted to be sure that there will be no more distractions.

Dooku pointed his left hand at Skywalker and unleashed a concentrated bolt of Sith Lightning at him.

Vader sensed the danger and met it with a raised hand. He caught the attack on his palm, which was protected by shield made of Force energy. Anakin deflected it towards the Duros, who was ready this time and met the lightning with his raised blade.

The three of them were locked at an impasse when Dooku refused to stop his onslaught.

The Twi'lek attacked Skywalker head on in an attempt to break the stalemate. The former Sith Lord caught the crimson blade of the Dark Jedi with his lightsaber and with a mighty shove, pushed him back.

That situation might have continued until Vader was too tired to fend of his three opponents, but that was not to be.

A quiet tapping sound could barely be heard coming from the direction of the landing ramp.

By an unannounced agreement, the combatants disengaged and Vader quickly moved to cover the wounded form of Obi-Wan.

Moment later, Yoda calmly walked into the hangar, revealing that the tapping sound was caused by his gnarled walking stick.

"Master Yoda." the Sith Lord greeted his former teacher in a calm voice concealing his disappointment.

Dooku was not arrogant enough to believe that he could easily dispatch the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order. Further, from what he saw, his remaining Acolytes were unlikely to defeat Skywalker.

The opportunity to dispatch a pair of Jedi was slipping from his grasp.

"Count Dooku," a hint of disappointment could be heard in the ancient Jedi's voice.

"This is the last time you meddle in our affairs." declared Dooku. His tone carried none of the doubts he felt within his heart.

The Sith Lord used the Force to grab an empty container mounted on a nearby wall and threw it at the tiny Jedi.

Vader grinned when Dooku and Yoda started their duel. Now he was free to deal with the remaining two fools without further interruptions.

"Anakin! Catch!" Kenobi used the Force to summon his lightsaber and throw it to Skywalker's free hand.

Anakin caught the weapon with his free hand and activated it. An azure blade hissed to life and Vader pointed it at the Duros.

"Let's finish this charade!" Skywalker hissed.

In his left side, which was obscured by the shadows covering the hangar, a yellow eye was blazing with fierce joy.

Vader surged forward, and the Dark Acolytes ran to meet him.

Green and emerald met crimson. Each parried strike released white sparks of energy, briefly illuminating the darkened dock.

The three combatants fought for a few seconds, neither side gaining the upper hand. The reason for that was simple: Vader was on the precipice of exhaustion. In the brief moments when he had to hold off Dooku and his cronies, he had spent most of the tiny reserves of stamina he had left. The pair of Dark Jedi were unable to overcome the experience of the former Sith Lord.

Anakin had to end the battle immediately.

Vader drew all his remaining strength into enhancing his body as much as possible.

The eyes of the Acolytes widened when they sensed a torrent of power washing through their opponent. That was all the warning they got, and it was insufficient to save them.

Vader glided forward, delivering strikes with power rivaling the best he managed decades hence as a cyborg. If one looked close enough, they could see tiny shock-waves of Force energy exploding every time the Dark Jedi parried one of his strikes.

His sudden monstrous strength caught them off guard.

Skywalker advanced as an unstoppable juggernaut, and smashed through the guard of the Twi'lek as if it was put up by a youngling.

He followed with a second strike, battering the lightsaber out of the man's hands.

At the same time he was using Kenobi's lightsaber to fend off the frantic attacks from the Duros.

Vader smiled, relishing the fear reeking from his opponents. His eyes met those of the Twi'lek an instant before he stabbed him in the chest. The emerald blade sliced through flesh and bones as if they weren't there, leaving a gaping mall in the torso of the man.

The part of Skywalker which was still very much a Sith, drank deeply from the Dark Jedi's despair, when he realized that his death was at hand.

Vader turned his back to the dying man and concentrated on his remaining adversary.

In the other end of the docking bay, Dooku glanced at the other battle. One of his Acolytes was dying and the other would not be alive for long. He could clearly sense the power of the boy. His servant stood no chance against someone like that.

It was time for Dooku to cut his looses and get away from Geonosis.

He parried a pair of slashes, which Yoda delivered in quick succession, and channeled the Force through his free hand.

Dooku used the gathered energy to crush the foundations of a pillar made by joined metal pipes, which toppled towards the prone form of Kenobi. The Sith Lord smiled when he felt a shift in Yoda's intentions. The Jedi Master had decided to save his fellow Force Adept and was no longer an immediate threat to him.

He left the Yoda to his own devises and ran towards his ship.

Just before he jumped in his transport out of Geonosis, the Sith Lord saw Skywalker cornering his last Acolyte.

Vader had the Duros with his back to the wall. The Dark Jedi's lightsaber was pinned against the rocky surface by the azure blade in Anakin's left hand, leaving him wide open.

A flash of green later, the decapitated Duros slid down the wall.

Vader sensing that the immediate danger was over, deactivated his weapons. He turned around in time to see Dooku's ship leaving.

Someone sent a hail of blaster bolts after the disappearing craft but they did nothing more than sparkling over its tough hull.

Anakin turned his head towards the wall behind which the blaster fire came and breathed a sigh of relief.

Seconds later, Padme ran inside followed by two squads of clone troopers, which had a medic each. She looked at the aftermath of the battle and winced when her eyes lingered over Kenobi's injuries.

When he saw that, Skywalker had to fight to remain calm, because for a moment his heart was pierced by a spike of irrational jealousy.

However that moment passed and was promptly forgotten a second later.

Padme had determined that no threats were present so she ran to the man she loved and drew him into a fierce hug. His hands embraced her and pressed her gently to his chest.

Amidala was glad that after Anakin's display in the Arena they no longer had to hide. She was well aware that soon enough everyone would know about their relationship. After all, nothing in the galaxy moved faster than a juicy rumor.

Yoda looked at the pair and frowned. He sensed a disturbance in the Force. Those two, and especially that padawan, were going to give him a heap of headaches.

The Jedi Master frowned at them. He was too old to deal with this stuff...


	5. Chapter 2 Part 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. It belongs to Disney. I make no money from this story.**

**AN: This part was betaed by vyor, ****on the Space Battles forums! Thank you very much!**

**Chapter 2: The End of an Era**

**=KoF=**

**Part 1**

**Jedi Temple, Coruscant**

Vader felt strange. The last time he had been in this place, it was during the last days of the Republic, when he led his 501st Legion. When he started the Jedi Purge.

Yet the building he walked into, was different. It was intact. Vibrant, and full of life. There was no sign of the scars caused by the fighting and the barely controlled fires that followed.

Not to mention that there dozens of the people walking this halls, were ones he had killed in a future past.

Once, a lifetime ago, the Temple was his home. Yet, it no longer felt that way.

Even as it was now, brightly lit by the golder rays of the morning sun, Vader could almost feel the ghosts inhabiting the building. No, this place couldn't be his home again.

Vader might have forsaken the Sith philosophy, but one thing was sure. He was no Jedi.

He examined his spartan room, which had been his home for a long time. It was as he remembered it.

The small bed with a hard mattress, the plain stool and desk near the door. A data pad left forgotten on a little table with two not particularly comfortable chairs near it.

Skywalker removed the black glove from his right hand and traced his fingers over the cover of the bed. It was firm and a bit rough.

A part of Anakin's mind wanted him to jump around, while screaming with joy. It was something he had been suppressing ever since the Force sent him back to the past. It was probably a part of his younger self with which he had merged.

He disregarded the wishes of the echo that had been Padawan Anakin Skywalker. That foolish, naive boy was, for most intents and purposes, gone. He had been absorbed by the older personality of Vader.

Yet, it left behind something... different. The former Sith Lord could feel it in his being. He was no longer Skywalker the Jedi. Nor was he Darth Vader. Who he was now, well that was something he would have to discover.

He looked around the room and his eyes stopped over a framed wooded board, which was hanging on the law next to the fresher's door. It was an ancient piece, on which was carved the Jedi Code.

_There is no emotion, only peace._

Heh. That was the first tenet. One he had always been abysmal at. While it wasn't half bad starting point for indoctrinating the Jedi dogma to toddlers, it hadn't worked so well on his nine years old self.

_There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._

Yet, the Jedi as a whole were ignorant as far as he was concerned. In the end, even Kenobi didn't really know him. All of them assumed that he had been brainwashed, just as they were. It was ironic, how blind the Councilors, even Yoda were.

He had never been a good Jedi. For Skywalker, loyalty to the Temple, the Order as a whole... it was a fleeting thing. He once had friends for whom he would have given his life. Gladly. Then there was his Angel, Padme.

He would have placed the live of every single one of them higher on his list of priorities than the Jedi Order as a whole.

That was something he would do again. However the number of people who he truly cared about, well now they could be counted on the fingers of a single arm.

_There is no passion, only peace._

As a Sith, Vader had learned that this was a lie. It was an extrapolation of the first tenet of the Code, and put together they summarized what was wrong with the Jedi. They were trying to deny a fundamental part of what meant to be a living, breathing, sentient being.

In the decades after the Order fell, he often wondered if the ultimate purpose of the Jedi was to turn themselves into unfeeling automatons akin to droids.

No. Into something worse. In his years Vader knew at least a few droids which had full emotions with a lot more possessing rudimentary feelings.

Vader shook his head. Such musings would lead him nowhere. Even now, when he was no longer a Sith, Skywalker believed that their Code was better. It took account of the reality in which the Force Adepts were living in.

The Jedi Code meant that his love of Padme was something wrong, and that was something Vader would never accept.

**=KoF=**

Vader walked the ancient corridors of the Temple on his way to the Council chambers. With every step, Anakin expected that the shades of Jedi he had cut down would rise to challenge him.

Skywalker needed to finish the impending "interview" with the Jedi Masters and get out of the Temple while he still had control over his temper.

When he reached his destination, Vader stopped for a moment. He took a deep breath and calmed himself. It was time to face the music.

He opened the door and heard Master Yoda speaking.

"Victory, you say? Master Obi-Wan, not victory, Geonosis was. Begun the Clone War has."

Vader had to suppress a smirk. The tiny green menace had no idea what was coming.

"You summoned me, Masters. Here I am." said Skywalker.

His tone was neutral, betraying nothing of his true feelings.

During his service under Sidious, Vader had committed countless unspeakable acts. Yet, half the reason for everything that happened to him and the galaxy at large could be found in the face of the Jedi in this room.

Granted, Sidious manipulated and betrayed everyone, making him as much to blame as the people inside the Council Chambers.

Vader looked around the mostly empty chamber. Windu and Kenobi were next to one of the windows to the left. The Grandmaster was sitting in his chair, flanked by Master Plo Koon, who was reading from a data pad and by all appearances, wasn't paying much attention to his fellow Jedi.

His gaze stopped on Obi-Wan.

That was the man who had raised him ever since he was freed all those years ago. Kenobi was the man he once considered to be his older brother. Someone to look up to.

However, Obi-Wan, was also the man who had used Padme. He had tricked Vader's wife and placed her in the path of a brand new Sith, who had been drunk on the Dark Side. Kenobi had left him burning on the shores of a magma river.

Then, there was Yoda. The Grandmaster of the Jedi Order. Supposedly the wisest of them all. Yet, he had been as blind as the rest. When the short Jedi Master told him that he should let go of his attachments...

Remembering it, Vader was barely able to keep his temper in check. Only the experience gained from decades spent deceiving the Emperor, let him keep his composure.

The Jedi had betrayed him twice already. He wouldn't, couldn't trust them again.

"Anakin, your... questionable display of passion towards Senator Amidala is a matter of a grave concern." said Kenobi.

"Indeed." muttered Vader.

Now, that their blossoming relationship was a public secret, neither Padme nor he were in any particular hurry. This time there wouldn't be a hasty marriage on the eve the war started.

Perhaps it was better that way. She always wanted a huge wedding, something he couldn't give her thanks to the need of secrecy. Well, that was no longer an issue...

Seeing that Skywalker wasn't about to immediately answer his master, Yoda and Mace glanced at each other.

"Dangerous, this attachment is." added the Grandmaster.

"Padawan Skywalker, you will explain yourself." Windu's words, while spoken calmly, were nothing less than an order.

Obviously the Jedi Master wanted answers and expected the padawan in front of the Council to provide them.

Vader frowned. He could sense what the Vaapad master felt, despite the fact that Mace was doing a very good job at strangling his emotions. Windu was wavering between rigid self control and subdued aggression. Ah, the dangers of being a Vaapad master even when you are out of combat and not using the style.

The Jedi Masters were about to make his decision much easier for Vader.

Master Plo Koon looked away from the data pad in his hands. He hadn't paid much attention to the proceeding so far. In his opinion, the whole interview was a waste of time, which was something that the Jedi couldn't really afford. Not when the Order was drawn into a real, galaxy spanning war for the first time in centuries.

Skywalker should have explained himself to his master, being chastised for his brazen behavior, and then Kenobi should have reported any further irregularities to the Council. The real concern of the boy's actions was how they would influence the padawans and young Jedi who were on Geonosis and saw him with Senator Amidala. Add to that those who could be swayed by rumors of the event.

Say what you will about the Jedi as a whole, but in that regard they were just as everyone else. A lot of them loved a juicy rumor, though very few would admit to it. Most of the time that was either harmless or even occasionally useful.

It was different today. If not for Dooku and his supposed shadow master, the so called Darth Sidious, Skywalker's actions wouldn't be too concerning. When all was said and done, the padawan was a young man, and as such it was almost expected that he would have a youthful indiscretion or two. It wasn't a problem if when found such a thing was nipped in the bud.

"Padawan Skywalker..." Master Koon gazed at the young man. "Your attachment is an outright violation of the Jedi Code. Even worse, you made it blatantly clear by announcing it in the middle of a battle, demonstrating that it influences your judgment. You must end this affair with the Senator. Immediately."

With his piece said, Plo Koon returned his attention to the data pad in his hands.

For an instant, the Council Chambers were washed by what felt as dark flames, before the unnatural presence disappeared as fast as it manifested.

The three Jedi in the room were struck speechless for a moment, too busy staring in the young man in front of them to react.

"I must?" sneered Vader.

He should have expected it. They were ready to judge him even before hearing his side of the story. Typical.

Vader was different from the headstrong boy they knew. He was a man accustomed to wielding power, not someone's lapdog. That was something Anakin wouldn't allow to happen again.

He was no longer trapped in that kriffing suit. Vader was whole, with his connection to the Force undamaged. After two decades of living hell, he was able to make his own choices.

He was no longer a pawn in the games of the Sith, much less one belonging to a bunch of clueless Jedi.

"Anakin!" exclaimed Obi-Wan.

The Jedi Knight was unpleasantly surprised by his padawan's outburst. The brief wave of pure Dark Side energy which washed over the chamber made him truly understand the peril hanging upon his student. While not fallen, Anakin was in precautions situation, one that was being made worse by his and the Council ignorance of what they were dealing with.

Kenobi send a brief glare at the Kel Dor Jedi Master, who had stopped reading and was staring at Skywalker, and cringed. He should have pressed the point more forcefully, making sure that the Jedi master knew Anakin's devotion to Padme not only intellectually but in their hearts too.

Windu and Plo Koon were handling Skywalker as they would another padawan who made the same... "mistake", though at least they weren't outright demanding that he leave the Senator. Especially the Kel Dor Jedi Master.

In another case, Koon's words would have been the natural response to the padawan's actions. However, here, today, Kenobi felt they were the sparks which were about to ignite an inferno.

What was happening with Anakin? Obi-Wan's frown deepened. Anakin hadn't given him the promised answers yet.

Skywalker's lips twitched in amusement at his former master's obvious confusion.

"Why would I do that, Master Koon?" hissed Vader.

His mismatched eyes stared at the Jedi in turn, daring them to contradict him.

"Would you expel me because I fell in love?" he asked in a calmer voice.

"In shadows you walk, young Skywalker." stated Yoda. "The Dark Side I sense in you. Fall to it you could. Easily..."

"Anakin, what in the name of the Force is happening to you?!" asked Kenobi.

The Jedi Knight couldn't help it. The way his padawan was speaking to the Council was unnerving. There wasn't even the hint of respect that one would have expected. Only calm indifference, until Senator Amidala was mentioned. Surely, Anakin knew that his attitude amounted to almost taunting the Jedi Masters. Chosen One or not, the Council members simply couldn't let him break the Code and walk all over them without any consequences.

Vader smiled ruefully.

"What indeed. My eyes opened, Obi-Wan. The Code means that my love for Padme is wrong. And that is something I will never accept!" he glared at each of the Jedi Masters in turn.

"Control, yourself, Skywalker!" Windu snapped at the blatant display of disrespect.

The only thing actually showing the displeasure of the Jedi Master was his voice, which was barely raised from his usual calm tone. Yet, for those who could sense through the Force, the Vaapad master was painted in slightly different light. Windu was frustrated by the way Skywalker was acting. The brief, almost unnoticed tendril of anger that tried to flare within his chest and was promptly crushed, wasn't caused by wounded pride or some other emotion.

It was driven by cold logic. Skywalker had the potential of becoming one of the most powerful Force Adepts in the history of the Jedi Order. As such, he had to be held to a higher standard. The way his was acting ever since Geonosis had to be stamped down for the good of the Republic and the Galaxy as a whole.

To the Jedi, it appeared that Skywalker was walking down a path leading straight to the greedy hands of the Dark Side. The potential fall had to be stopped. The first steps toward achieving that were to get information about what happened out of the boy and ending his relationship before it was too late.

"Or what? You'll expel me?" asked Vader.

He used the Force to levitate his lightsaber, until it was hanging in midair in front of him. Anakin examined the weapon, which was one he had constructed as a spare a week before he was assigned to protect Padme.

It fell off. He was no longer the eager teenager who had built the weapon. The lightsaber was no longer his. The connection between the blade and its wielder, that bade it an extension of ones will was no longer there.

This thing was just a tool. Vader needed to build himself a new lightsaber.

Yoda was staring at him with huge eyes. Vader smirked at the Jedi Masters, feeling their unease.

"Think about this, you should." said the ancient being.

Windu stared at the young man. Something was shifting within the depths of the Force, and it was centered on Skywalker. Mace felt a sinking feeling at the pit of his stomach.

Finally he could see it. Skywalker was a Shatterpoint which bound them all. And until now, when it was too late to do anything, but make the unfolding future even darker, Windu was unable to perceive it.

At that moment he knew it. They kriffed up by the numbers. Everything they said, despite being the right reaction for dealing with a padawan who kriffed up by the numbers, was the wrong way to handle Skywalker.

"Oh, I have, Master Yoda." said Vader.

"He should be explaining himself," grumbled Plo Koon.

Something in the young man was unnerving the Kel Dor male. The sudden surge of anger and darkness emanating from the Padawan had been a shock.

Obi-Wan's eyes widened. He remembered the conversation he had with his apprentice on Geonosis. Anakin couldn't mean to do that! Right? After all, the Jedi Masters hadn't really made him choose to break up with Senator Amidala. There was a huge difference between Master Koon saying what Skywalker should do and actually demanding that the padawan went through with it...

"Anakin, you can't possibly mean to do this!" the Jedi Knight exclaimed.

Vader levitated the hilt of his lightsaber, so it was in front of Obi-Wan and let go of it. Kenobi snatched it before it could fall to the ground.

"Have a nice day, Masters. I quit." the former Sith grinned at the shocked faces of the assembled Jedi.

He could clearly feel their stunned disbelief at his simple words. It was delicious.

Vader waved at them and cheerfully left the silent chambers.

He could almost hear the impending explosion. Skywalker wondered who would be the first to scream: "You are the Chosen One! You can't stop being a Jedi!" 

The doors slid behind him, cutting off the first shouts. For the first time, from even before falling to the Dark Side, Vader felt free.

**=KoF=**

**Chancellor Office, Senate Building, Coruscant**

Palpatine was sitting in his chair and grinning like a maniac. He could feel the currents of the Force subtly changing, and knew that what his young friend feared had become a fact. Sidious didn't need to be present in the Temple to know it. Anakin Skywalker was no longer a Jedi. While the boy was far away from being a Sith, turning him had become so much easier.

The Dark Lord chuckled. Who would have thought it? Padme Amidala, one of the Chancellor's biggest political opponents had bestowed him a priceless gift by ensnaring young Skywalker.

This was turning even better than his plans for the boy.

Palpatine retrieved a data pad from a drawer in his desk and started typing on it. With one fell sloop, he was about to deliver another strike to the Jedi.

"Let's see how you'll fare on the battlefield, General Skywalker." whispered the Sith Lord.

A few hours earlier, Anakin had contacted him with a request. The young man wanted a commission in the military in case he was expelled of the Order or was forced to quit. It was something Palpatine just granted.

This was a splendid week. The Clone Wars had begun, a lot of Jedi died in a single day, and now this.

"Now, let's see what else can I do for my Jedi friends..." muttered the Sith Lord.

**=KoF=**

**Council Chambers, Jedi Temple, Coruscant**

"Silence!" snapped Yoda.

It was so uncharacteristic, that it was almost as shocking as Skywalker's stunt.

The eyes of all present turned to the Order's Grandmaster.

"Blind we were." muttered Yoda. "Saw this, we did not," he looked at the assembled Jedi. "By the Dark Side, deceived we were. The Chosen One, for now lost he is."

Master Shaak Ti, who was present via a hologram, frowned. She had been silent so far, trying to evaluate the situation. While surprised by the actions of the boy, and disagreed with the way she went about it, the Togruta woman couldn't say that she really blamed him. Even if Skywalker was a full Jedi instead of a padawan, in the end it was his choice whether he would want to stay in the Order and sacrifice whatever he felt for the Senator from Naboo or leave. Unfortunately that was something with which some of her colleagues would disagree...

"Is this something we can afford?" asked Mace Windu.

"Make Skywalker an enemy we must not. Disaster that way lays." declared Yoda. He had a troubled expression on his face.


	6. Chapter 2 part 2

****Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. It belongs to Disney. I make no money from this story.****

****AN: This part was betaed by************Dragon Force Ranger Red ********on the Space Battles forums! Thank you very much!****

**Chapter 2: The End of an Era**

**Part 2**

**=KoF=**

**GAR Headquarters  
Coruscant**

Vader allowed himself an almost content smile. It was done. He was out of the Jedi's reach. For the first time, besides the days between his release from slavery and induction into the Order, Anakin was truly free!

He walked into the Army's Headquarters with a spring to his steps. Inside, he followed the instructions of a bored Twi'lek sergeant and filed the necessary paperwork. Thanks to whatever strings the Chancellor had pulled, it got processed almost immediately.

Only few hours later, Vader was a new man. General Anakin Skywalker in charge of 501st Legion.

Then he hit the first snag. There were no fitting uniforms for someone of his new exalted rank, so he would have to wait a day for a new one to be manufactured and delivered. So he had to make do with gray fatigues, just like what the Clones wore when not clad in their armor.

It wasn't particularly fancy, but it was better that his current black clothes, which technically belonged to the Jedi Order. He had a half mind to send them back in a box.

Anakin smirked at that childish thought and shook with silent laughter.

Now, that he had back in the army, with a rank reasonably close to that he had wielded for the last twenty years, he felt even better. While there was a part of him, which desired to just get Padme and went away from the wider galaxy and the war, there was another side of him.

For all the horrors he had lived through during the Clone Wars and the Empire that followed, leading troops had become a second nature to himself. Perhaps it was because being an officer gave him something to lean on, a familiar action to keep what shred of sanity he had still possessed before finding out that he had a son...

But deep down, he knew that it wasn't that simple. For all his youthful enthusiasm, besides his time with Padme, leading the 501st had been the best part of his life. Vader frowned at that thought.

During this war, he had become known as the Hero without fear, a title, which more than anything else showed how young, foolish and lucky he had been at the time. However, as a Sith, he had learned his lesson well. He knew both fear and anger very well, and was determined not to let them control him again.  
He couldn't afford to. Those two emotions, coupled with Palpatine's manipulations would cost him everything in the future.

Well, not this time. He would show his old master, both of them in fact, what he was made of. The galaxy was out there for the taking with only Sidious and few minor obstacles standing in his way... Ready for Vader to grasp it.

Nevertheless, that would have to wait. He had some explaining to do as far as Padme was concerned...

**=KoF=**

**Republica 500  
Coruscant**

Vader stared at the closed door of Padme's apartment, feeling like an idiot. He had visited few high end restaurants, procuring some of her favorite meals, before passing through a flower shop, from where he bought a large bouquet of flowers he knew she loved ever since she was a little girl. Then he went to her home only to find out that Padme and her current bodyguards had left for Naboo for the next couple of weeks.

This was just what had happened the last time, however then it was him who brought her back home. Anakin groaned, feeling like smashing his head in the closest wall. Repeatedly.

This relationship stuff was going to be harder the second time around...

Anakin took a deep breath to calm himself and shook his head in frustration. He needed to kill something. Another deep breath.

It couldn't be helped. Vader decided to call Padme and check if she was all right after he reached his temporally home. As a newly minted GAR General, he was entitled to a place within one of the buildings housing the army's and navy's officer quarters on Coruscant.

**=KoF=**

**Ahsoka Tano's quarters  
Jedi Temple  
Coruscant**

A young Togruta female was getting more and more bored in her small room. She had been virtually under house arrest for the last few hours, ever since some great commotion had happened in a council meeting. There was a sense of apprehension and foreboding in the air. It clung to the very Force itself. There was a hint of fear and insecurity as well.

It was strange, like nothing she had felt within the Temple's walls.

Ahsoka sat cross-legged on her small bed and closed her eyes, in a futile attempt to meditate. It was all for naught. Her mind was bouncing this way and that, wondering what in the name of the Force was happening. She was feeling restless, too wound up to rest or meditate.

An instinct screamed at her to move, to run.

Staying cooped in her small room with nothing to do was driving the energetic girl up the walls in frustration.

Suddenly a soft chiming sound could be heard. Someone was on the other side of her door. Ahsoka opened her eyes and almost smiled. She could sense the presence of Master Plo Koon on the other side of the door. However, the sense of foreboding increased to an almost unbearable degree.

Tano shivered, a ghost of fear worming itself through her heart before she ruthlessly suppressed the feeling. She jumped from her bed and hurried to open the door.

Sure enough, Master Koon was waiting on the other side. Ahsoka's smile froze on her face. The old Kel Dor looked grim.

"Master?" asked Ahsoka. She could feel the swirling tides of the Force trying to warn her about something.

"May I enter, young one?" asked the aging Jedi.

Tano nodded and moved aside, leaving the path open. Plo Koon went in and when the door closed behind him he used the Force to place a barrier around the small room. When a Jedi Master desired to have a private conversation, he had a few ways to ensure that it stays that way.

Ahsoka's eyes widened in confusion when she felt what Plo Koon did. This was going to be bad. She just knew it.

Master Koon sat on one of the pair of plain chairs in the room and looked at the girl, while he was trying not to curse the foolishness of the majority of the Council. He couldn't afford to get angry. No matter how good a reason he had.

"Some, significant events took place earlier today, Ahsoka," he started speaking with deceptively calm voice.

"I'm not going to like where this is going, am I, Master?" asked Ahsoka.

"Hardly. Nevertheless, despite what some people think, you have the right to know what and why happened," grumbled the Jedi Master. "There was a Council meeting, in which Anakin Skywalker was called in to explain his actions on Geonosis."

"Oh!" exclaimed Ahsoka.

While she and a lot of the younger generation of padawans and Jedi approved of Skywalkers stunt with the Senator from Naboo, the same thing couldn't be said about the older Jedi. Which incidentally were the ones running the Order.

Ahsoka suddenly had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Skywalker left the Jedi Order," he dropped the bomb. In another time and place, Koon would have found his former student's reaction amusing. Here and now, it brought him even more regret.

Ahsoka's eyes widened in surprise and disbelief. To the Jedi Master, her stunned disbelief was something solid. He felt that he could touch it if he excreted himself through the Force.

"How? Why?!" blurted out the young girl.

"We treated Skywalker as your average padawan who made such an n indiscretion..." the Kel Dor Jedi Master trailed off. He knew that his words contributed to Anakin's decision. "It was a mistake. Oh, he broke the Code in such a way that consequences were warranted. However, young Skywalker perceived our words, my words, as giving him a choice between Senator Amidala and remaining a Jedi," Master Koon took a deep breath, his respirator hissing loudly in the quiet room.

"He chose the woman he loves, didn't he? As if he would do anything less..." muttered Ahsoka.

The Jedi Master chuckled. "Indeed, young one. It seems you are more perceptive than most of the Council put together."

"It gets worse, isn't it?"

"Indeed. Ahsoka, after he left, we had a few hours long recess before meeting again. The second time, the topic was related to Skywalker leaving," Plo Koon found it hard to continue, yet Ahsoka was his former student. He owed her the truth. "His actions shook the Council. The Chosen One leaving the Jedi Order... Unthinkable!" he shook his head sadly. "But I'm starting to ramble. Let's cut to the chase. There was a vote, a very close one. The council decided that with the war starting, we can't afford to expose padawans who are emotionally unstable to the pressures of combat. A not insignificant number of padawans and a few Jedi Knights are being send to the Agri Corps for the duration of the conflict. For their own good of course. At least this is the official reason."

"No! They can't do that!" Ahsoka frantically shook her head. She felt scared, betrayed, because there was only one reason why Master Koon was telling her all this. Under a privacy barrier too. She had done nothing wrong! Certainly nothing to warrant being sent to the Agri Corps!

"What the Council shouldn't do and what it can't do... Unfortunately sometimes those are two very different things. Skywalker's actions shook a lot of the Council members. In the end, some of us overreacted. While I don't believe that this would be a long term solution, especially after Master Yoda showed his displeasure at this course of action, it stands for now. You are amongst those who are to be sent away..."

Ahsoka moved like in a trance until she was near her bed and sat down, dejected. This had to be some sort of a bizarre nightmare. Right? She looked at her former teacher. Ahsoka could feel him being torn between his duty as a Jedi Master and this madness forced upon him by his fellow Council members.

"It's not fair!" she exclaimed. "We did nothing wrong!"

"Perhaps not," muttered Plo Koon. Surely this time the Jedi Code came back to bite them on their collective backsides.

A rift had appeared in the midst of the Jedi. Part of him wanted to blame Skywalker and his love for the Senator about what happened. That was the easy way. After all, the Code told them about the danger of letting one's emotions run free... Yet, he couldn't help but feel that this whole debacle could have been easily avoided.

On one hand it was easily to despise Skywalker's feelings for Padme Amidala, which were now rending the Jedi Order asunder. On the other, was it really so dangerous, so wrong, to let the boy pursue his love? Especially now, that they knew what would happen if they threw the Code in his face and declared his feelings wrong.

Plo Koon didn't have a good answer. Decades of upholding the creed of the Jedi were clashing with the consequences of the Order's rigidity.

Then, there was the second reason why he came to visit his former padawan. After the second council meeting, Plo Koon has spoken with Masters Yoda and Kenobi. Those two had an interesting plan to start patching up the relations between Skywalker and the Order.

"I have a proposition for you, Ahsoka," spoke the Jedi Master.

She perked up at that. A bit of gloom and doom hanging upon her Force signature dissipating at his words.

"Instead of going to the Agri Corps, you are going to be given the opportunity to study under a specific Jedi Knight, should both of you agree to it..."

**=KoF=**

**Dex's Dinner  
CoCo Town  
Coruscant**

Anakin made his way to Kenobi's favorite dinner place, wondering why he agreed to meet his former master. Perhaps was the frustration he felt after failing to contact Padme, who by now should be in hyperspace, on some unknown transport en route to Naboo. After his plans for a romantic dinner with the woman who he loved fell through, Vader didn't relish the thought of spending the evening alone in the officers quarters. He was too wound up to rest or sleep.

So when Kenobi called him and proposed to meet for a dinner, he had accepted without much of a fuss. Besides, he quite liked Dexter's nerf steaks.

When Vader arrived, Kenobi was already at the dinner. The Jedi Master was sitting at a corner table and sipping juri juice with a far away look in his eyes. Sensing Anakin, Obi-Wan turned looked at his direction and raised both eyebrows at seeing his former padawan wearing GAR fatigues with a general insignia on his chest to booth.

"Well, well, my former padawan. You have a story to tell. You've wasted no time I see."

"Obi-Wan," Anakin greeted coolly and sat across the table from Kenobi.

'This is going to be even more interesting conversation than I anticipated...' thought Kenobi.

**=KoF=**

**GAR Staging Area  
Senate District  
Coruscant**

Dozens of Acclamator Assault ships could be seen near the Senate Building. The choice of this staging area for the GAR, was mostly political in nature. It was both a show of strength and attempt to assure the Republic's populations that those in charge had everything in control, despite the civil war all in name that was starting to ravage the galaxy.

However, those thoughts were far from the minds of the clones who were preparing to board their ships. Legion after legion marched up the ramps of their designate ships in parade formations. They looked like a powerful, unstoppable juggernaut, ready and willing to crush the Republic's enemies. It was even mostly true.

Too bad that the Droid armies they had to face outnumbered them to an almost ridiculous margin.

In a temporary barracks, a few kilometers from the senate building itself, a battalion of clone troopers waited to receive their marching orders. Amongst their numbers was Torrent Company under the command of a certain Captain Rex, who was lounging in a not particularly comfortable chair. He was within a small cubicle that passed for his office until they deployed and was trying his best to vanquish the paperwork associated with his men's stay in their temporary home.

All the training on Kamino hadn't prepared him for this mind numbing part of his duties. He would rather face a company of droids while naked and armed with only a pistol rather than deal with this mess for another day.

The computer terminal on his desk pinged, informing him that he had received a new message. Rex idly pressed few buttons, glad for any distraction.

Wouldn't you know, the bureaucracy had finally got around to sending him his marching orders! They were going to be under the command of a General Anakin Skywalker, who would meet them in the morning. Further, the battalion should be ready for deployment in two days at the latest. That at least shouldn't be a problem. They were ready to go at a moments notice.

Rex wondered about their new commanding officer. He hadn't heard a thing about this Skywalker...


	7. Chapter 2 part 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. It belongs to Disney. I make no money from this story.**

**AN: This part was betaed by Dragon Force Ranger Red, ****on the Space Battles forums! Thank you very much!**

**Chapter 2: End of and Era**

**=KoF=**

**Part 3**

**Dex's Dinner  
CoCo Town  
Coruscant**

Vader took a sip from his juice, while examining his former master. In turn, Obi-Wan was looking at him with amusement written all over his face.

"What?" Anakin asked and shrugged his shoulders. "Did you expect me to be content with becoming a mechanic on some Force forsaken dust ball in the Outer Rim?"

"Knowing you, Anakin... Not really. Perhaps an illegal racer on Nar Shaddaa or something..." quipped Obi-Wan.

The younger man snorted. As if he would willingly work for the damn Hutts! Nope! Not happening!

He took another swing of his juice, reveling at the taste. It has been ages since Vader has tasted real food and drinks. Which in turn meant that the various aromas in the dinner made him light headed for a bit before he could recover his composure. If Kenobi noticed it, he declined to comment.

"Eh. Too boring. Ever since the troubles on Naboo, I've needed something more to get my blood running."

Obi-Wan shook his head. "That usually leads to situations that nearly gave me heart attack, my former padawan."

"What can I say? It's not my fault you are getting old, Obi-Wan!" Vader smirked.

"Hey! I resent that! I merely become better with age! Like a good bottle of wine!"

"So one of these days you are going to turn into vinegar?" Anakin innocently asked.

"You are impossible. I'm almost glad that I'm no longer responsible for your antics!"

"Why, thank you old man!" Anakin smirked.

"So how did you become a general in single afternoon?"

"Just like the Jedi. Apparently the GAR is so short on command grade officers so they will take in anyone with some reasonable credentials."

"Yet, you are no longer a Jedi."

"So? It's not like most Order members know how to command troops and wage war. After all, we were trained as peace keepers, not soldiers. Despite that, most of the Jedi got a commission from Commander upwards no less."

Kenobi sadly nodded. He didn't really had a rebuff to that argument. After all he agreed. Some new GAR officers were mere padawans, with no real experience in the real world, much less than leaders of men. In his opinion, the Council as a whole should have protested what amounted as conscription of the Jedi. Yet, Yoda and the rest only grumbled and let it slide.

"Anakin, about what happened in the Council chambers..."

"Don't!" Vader waved his right hand in an abrupt slicing motion. "They made their point very clear. Even if most of the Masters didn't want to expel me, to them my love of Padme is something wrong. That much is obvious! An act that should be punished. A youthful indiscretion at beast and an immoral violation worthy of expulsion at worst."

Kenobi winced. There were Jedi on the Council who saw Anakin's action as anything in between the extremes his young friend just described.

"That is something I could never accept, Obi-Wan. If the Jedi Code really means that my love is wrong, then it is no longer a creed I could follow."

"Ah. That's... unfortunate given the circumstances."

Vader raised an eyebrow at that. He gave Kenobi a deadpan expression.

"Fine. Lay it out for me. What have you, damn fossils, cooked up this time?"

"Now, now, Anakin, you don't have to be so cynical. You are too young for that."

Vader's answered with an amused snort. He had missed the content banter with his old master as well as riling up the elder Jedi.

"Master Yoda disagrees with the Council's latest brainstorm."

"Which is?"

"Well, according to some more... conservative elements of the Order, the padawans who approved of your and Senator Amidala's display in the Arena, are emotionally compromised."

"Uh-huh. So the kids being typical teenagers is now frowned upon?" Vader wondered if him quitting the Order had led to the Jedi Masters losing their minds. "So what is their latest hair brained scheme?"

Under different circumstances, Kenobi might have scoffed at the blatant disrespect towards his fellow Jedi Masters, though in this case he had to agree. The Council's latest actions were questionable. At best.

"They decided to send the padawans in question as well as few knights to the Agri Corps for the duration of the war.

"You got to be kidding me!" Vader chortled. That had to be a joke! Such a stunt would drive most of those boys and girls in the hands of the first Sith who went on a recruitment drive. Their anger and resentment at the unjust treatment would be magnificent fertile ground for turning them to the Dark Side. They were very lucky that he wasn't about to start his own Sith Cabal or something.

"I wish!" Kenobi grumbled. The Jedi took a deep breath before continuing. "Master Yoda has a proposition for you, Anakin. One I hope you'll consider."

"Indeed?" Vader wondered what scheme the damn troll had in mind.

"You'll be listed as a Jedi on a long term assignment outside the Order."

"How interesting...So the Jedi technically won't use their 'Chosen One'!" Vader made air quotes around the last two words.

"In nutshell. You'll also receive your promotion to Jedi Knight thanks to your field performance on Geonosis, your antics with the Senator notwithstanding."

"So for the time being everyone gets what he wants? I don't have to deal with idiots who disapprove of me being in love, and the Order keeps their poster boy?"

"Correct. You'll also get an apprentice from the deal," Obi-Wan smirked, expecting Anakin to be shocked.

"That's certainly unexpected..." Vader thought aloud. It wasn't a bad deal. It could be useful to remain nominally as a part of the Order for the time being. Though, the padawan part was concerning. To be fair, there was only one who he would consent on training right now... "Who is the lucky kid that would have the good fortune to learn from me?"

Obi-Wan shook with a combination of silent laughter and exasperation.

"I see that you modesty is as great as ever. To answer your question, Padawan Ahsoka Tano. She was one of the kids who most vocally supported your antics."

Vader had to suppress a huge grin. After all, he'll be able to get Snips away from the Jedi's influence without having to resort to underhanded methods. The fools were giving her to him on a silver platter!

"Hmm... Tano? A spirited Togruta girl?"

"The same. Though describing her as a merely spirited is understatement..."

Don't I know! Dear little Snips, the troublemaker!

"I accept. It will be fun to have a padawan on my own!"

Obi-Wan chuckled. "I hope that she won't give you nearly as many problems as you caused me!"

"Me? I was a model padawan, master!" Vader exclaimed with mock horror creeping in his voice.

"Anakin, if that was your best behavior, I shudder to think what your worst is!"

'You really don't want to know Obi-Wan...' the former Sith Lord thought darkly.

A mountain of a man arrived then, interrupting their banter. That was the Dinner's owner, Dex, who was followed by a slim waiter droid, which brought their steaming steaks.

"Obi-Wan, you're back in one piece, I see! Did you two find out what you were looking for?" rumbled the large alien.

Kenobi nodded and gave a faint smile to his old friend.

"Let's just say that I found more on Kamino that I bargained for."

"Yeah. A whole army..." Vader muttered in an absent minded way. Most of his attention was concentrated on the juicy steak and the mouth watering aroma coming from the well cooked meal.

"So, that's how the Republic got an army so fast!" Dex exclaimed.

"Indeed," Obi-Wan deadpanned, making obvious that he wasn't particularly thrilled with the situation.

The proprietor looked over his friend and his former apprentice, paying attention on Skywalker's uniform.

"So, are you both generals now, or did they decide that you are too old for this mess, Obi-Wan?" Dex grinned.

Kenobi scowled. "Unfortunately I got roped in this mess too."

"Nonsense, Obi-Wan. You are at least reasonably competent," Anakin quipped between two bites of steak. "for an old man..."

"Anakin, your faith in me is astounding," Kenobi smirked. "Besides, there must be someone in the army who can keep you from getting into too much trouble."

"Nonsense, Obi-Wan! I only get in trouble when I'm bored! I'm awesome like that!" Vader took a swing from his juice and changed the topic. "Now, tell me when I'll be meeting my troublesome apprentice?"

**=RK=**

**North Docks  
Jedi Temple  
Coruscant**

Padawan Ahsoka Tano, trudged towards an empty landing pad. Her master was supposed to arrive there shortly and get her away from the madhouse in which the Jedi Temple was turning in. The people like her, who supported Skywalker and Senator Amidala forbidden love, were expected to leave for the Agri Corps within the week. Most of their masters were passively resisting the orders to ensure that said apprentices were ready to depart in time.

If she didn't know better, Ahsoka would have thought that the entire Order was on the brink of a civil war, despite the efforts of Master Yoda to straighten up the mess. Last she heard, The Grandmaster and Master Koon were preparing to call a council meeting at the end of the week, where the whole awful affair was supposed to end once and for all. Nevertheless, the young Togruta didn't hold her breath in anticipation for a happy outcome. Not when this insane idea shouldn't have made its way through a Council vote in the first place!

Ahsoka looked around, feeling someone watching her. She was barely able to notice a pair of Temple Guards, whose featureless masks were pointed her way. She frowned, wondering on whose side those two were.

She shook her head, wondering how it all went to hell like that! This was the Jedi Order! Things like this weren't supposed to happen in the Temple!

Tano started passing in front of the landing pad, in a futile attempt to calm her strained nerves. She was moderately successful when she heard the whine of an approaching craft. She turned her head in the direction of the sound and saw a LAAT transport descending towards the Jedi Temple. The small ship was painted in dark green and black, giving it a distinct bird of prey look.

The LAAT touched down gently and its side door slid open, revealing a pair of men. The first one was familiar to Ahsoka. Even now, when he was wearing a green general's uniform, there was no mistaking Anakin Skywalker. She would have immediately recognized him even without the Force.

The other one, another very tall man, was wearing a junior officer's uniform, if she wasn't mistaken.

"Padawan Tano," Skywalker said in a level voice.

While his face was a blank mask, Ahsoka could sense Anakin's turmoiling emotions clear as a day. There was a wonder, a feeling of profound joy mixed with sadness.

The Jedi Knight clamped on his emotions, veiling them behind a buzzing wall of Force. "Jump in. We have places to be. Is this all your luggage?" he asked, pointing to the small backpack slung over her shoulder.

Ahsoka just nodded, wondering what was up with her new Jedi Master.

"Figures. We'll have to spare some time to get you a proper kit. As you probably know I'm General Anakin Skywalker," the Jedi Knight nodded towards his companion. "And this rascal is Lieutenant Maximilian Veers, who for some reason decided to abandon his peaceful career back on his homeworld and enlist in what passed for the Republic ground forces before the GAR was unveiled."

"Ma'am!" the Lieutenant gave her a sharp nod and saluted.

"By the way, in their endless wisdom, the senate decided that the Jedi must have high ranks in the army and would be able to effectively command troops in the field without any military training whatsoever! So congratulations are in order, Ahsoka! You are a brand new Commander in the army!"

She winced. "Thanks... I think?"

**=RK=**

**Chancellor's Office  
Senate Building  
Coruscant**

Palpatine was behind his desk, lounging in his comfortable chair. The cunning Sith Lord had just read a report from Dooku, who in turn had received it from one of his sympathizers within the Jedi ranks. A sinister grin was plastered over Sidious' face ever since he went over the first couple of paragraphs.

The Jedi Masters were doing a lot of his job for him themselves. The fools were about to handle him on a silver platter a lot of their padawans.

Ah, young, impressionable Jedi, whose hearts were fulled to the brink with resentment after the Council's latest brainstorm! The dark feelings coming in waves from the Jedi Temple were delicious for the Sith. Currently he was wondering how to use Skywalker's new position to sow even more strife into the Jedi's ranks...

Palpatine glanced at a stack of data pads, which was threatening to overwhelm the left side of his desk. All those pieces of shielded and heavily encrypted equipment contained status reports about the critical events all over the galaxy. One of them was the answer for Palpatine's dilemma.

'Let's see how to drive the wedge between the Order and Anakin even wider...'

"Battles across the Outer Rim... Useful but not exactly what I'm looking for... Various sensitive missions that Special Operations command wants initiated, which need my approval... Perhaps later... Ah, that's interesting! The baby son of that slime ball Jabba got himself kidnapped! Good riddance, I never liked the damn worms anyway... Yet... Let's see... Helping the 'innocent' spawn of a crime lord, who is eyebrows deep into slavery... The Jedi will be all over such an opportunity..." Sidious smiled viciously. "Yes, this will do... I just need to spin it the proper way..."

He pressed a well concealed button on his desk and his secretary answered moments later.

"How can I help you, sir?"

"I need to meet with Jedi Masters Yoda and Windu as well as General Skywalker and the current SBI agent assigned to brief me. As soon as possible."

"I'm on it, Chancellor!"


	8. Chapter 3 Part 1

****Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. It belongs to Disney. I make no money from this story.****

****AN: This part was betaed by A_Saroc and Dragon Force Ranger Red on the Space Battles forums! Thank you for the excellent work!****

****Chapter 3: Of Force Adepts and Crime Lords****

****=KoF=****

****Part 1****

****Chancellor's office****

****Senate building****

****Coruscant****

Vader was barely able to keep a lid on his temper, while he stared at the ghostly image of an overgrown slug. Jabba was blustering, demanding that the Republic in general and the Jedi in particular, retrieve his son. In exchange, he would permit the GAR to use the Hutt controlled hyperspace routes, so the Clones fighting in the Outer Rim wouldn't be mostly cut off from the heart of the Republic.

"We have to help Jabba. The Jedi must rescue his son," Palpatine stated. The ageing man was doing admirable job keeping on the illusion of his elderly, 'nice' persona.

Mace Windu, one of the three Jedi Masters present, frowned. The Vaapad master had no qualms at showing his displeasure. While, Plo Koon and Luminara, who were standing a pace behind him, carried themselves with the cool bearing expected from people in their positions, Windu was not so reserved. If it wasn't for the GAR representative in the room, he might have been calmer, yet the fact that Skywalker, who should have been no longer part of the Order was there, grated on the Jedi Master.

"Dealing with criminal, lawless scum... This is a dark day for the Republic, Chancellor."

"Oh, I agree, my friend!" Palpatine explained. He theatrically waved his arms in mock distress. "But what would you have me do? We need access to the hyperspace routes the Hutts control!"

"That or we lose the majority of our armies in the Outer Rim," a nondescript man wearing forgettable grey clothes interjected.

Vader suppressed an amused snort. The spy was almost going out of his way to appear as the clichéd image of Republic Intelligence agent. Not that it made him any lest correct in his assessment of the strategic situation.

"Indeed. Yet, I sense that there is more to this kidnapping than it appears," Mace muttered.

Sidious wasted no time and latched on the opening, which the Jedi Master gave him. "Then you must send as many Jedi as you can. This task is of utmost importance for the Republic!"

"Impossible, Chancellor! The cyborg, Grievous'' latest offensive has our troops spread thin. The only Jedi we can spare is General Kenobi. He is in the process of capturing Christophis."

"So that's where he disappeared to..." Vader muttered. Then he grimaced. The name of that planet brought back some not too pleasant memories. Both Obi-Wan and he were far from competent commanders back then. That combined with the lack of reliable communications had nearly led to an infamous defeat.

"A single Jedi? Even if its Master Kenobi, that simply won't do..." Palpatine shuddered in feigned horror. Then he glanced Vader's way. "Perhaps our newest General might be of service," he beamed at Anakin.

"That..." Mace groped for words. Skywalker had not only spat on the Jedi Code itself, but for most intents and purpose was being rewarded for that with the special treatment he was getting from both Yoda and the Chancellor. It simply wasn't right!

"Might work," the intelligence agent added. "It's unlikely that Jabba would see General Skywalker as anything than another Jedi. Sending him and Kenobi would show we take the situation at hand seriously enough."

"Excellent idea!" Palpatine beamed.

"May I make a suggestion, sir?" Vader asked.

"Naturally, my young friend."

"We can use this as an opportunity to reinforce our position on Christophis in the guise of sending a task force to search for Jabba's son."

"Excellent suggestion! Make it so!" Palpatine smiled. Anakin's reasoning wasn't that of a Jedi, which was a splendid thing indeed.

"Well then, unless there is something else, Chancellor, I should go fetch Obi-Wan so we can start searching for the kid," Vader gave small bow to Palpatine, something he despised doing and turned around to leave.

**=KoF=**

**GAR Positions**

**Chaleydonia city**

**Christophsis**

"Cody, concentrate the artillery on the Tri-droids and the tanks! We'll have to hold down their infantry!" Kenobi shouted in valiant attempt to be heard over the deafening din of the battle. He deflected a stray blaster bolt and took a moment to regret the decision of leaving his helmet back on the cruiser in orbit. The sound dampeners built in it would have done miracles for his hearing.

'Well, that's a moot point,' he thought. Said helmet was probably a piece of slag along with most of said capital ship, after two days ago enemy reinforcements retook the orbitals. The Republic's Navy Task Force, which had brought Obi-Wan and his clone subordinates had been either destroyed or forced to flee in the process. After that piece of bad news, the situations of the GAR units on the ground had become grim. The only real reason they were still alive, was that so far the CIS commanders were unwilling to level most of the planet's capital from orbit.

Not that the resulting city fighting was having much different final result, mused Kenobi, glancing at the ruins of once stunning crystalline skyscrapers.

The cannonade of another artillery barrage snapped the Jedi Master out of his distracting thoughts, straight back to the grim reality of the battlefield. He looked down the rubble covered boulevard, which was used by the CIS forces as their main avenue of advance. It was just in time, for him to see the effect of the strike. One shell missed, annihilating on impact a phalanx of B1 droids. However, the following two weapons flew true. One struck the front of the walking enemy direct weapon's fire platform, staggering it and slagging the currently front facing laser cannon. The second, more thanks to luck than anything else, collided with one of the huge droid's spider-like legs. The relatively thing appendage disappeared amidst a blinding explosion, sending the crippled machine into uncontrolled tumble. It collided with the façade of a nearby building and collapsed amidst an avalanche of shattered steel and crystal shards.

Two squads of recon troops, who were equipped with rocked packs, chose that moment to strike. They descended from the upper floors of the buildings lining the sides of the boulevards, raining thermal detonators and det-packs. Earth shattering explosions engulfed the middle of the CIS column, before the droids knew what hit them.

"Attack now!" Kenobi ordered, seeing an opportunity to further disturb the enemy advance.

He sprung forward, lightsaber blazing with azure light, followed by Cody and the rest of his men. Out of their reasonably secure cover, straight in the open, where even B1 droids couldn't miss forever...

In the end after a whirlwind of blaster fire, shattered men and machines, the Republic forces carried the day, buying themselves some additional time. All in the hope of reinforcements arriving before it was too late.

**=KoF=**

**Republic cruiser "Valiant"**

**High Orbit over Coruscant**

Ahsoka stepped out of the shuttle, which just landed in one of the cavernous hangars of the Venator class cruiser and looked around. A sea of identical faces belonging to a horde of clones greeted her. The soldiers and technicians on board were engaged trying to check and secure all their gear before the unexpected departure.

Seeing that no one expected her, the young padawan shook her head in exasperation and walked towards the nearest group of men, who were engaged adding stubby boxes under the short wings of a LAAT gunship. Tano was determined to find out where her Jedi Master was hiding himself in and go meet him. She just needed some directions towards his location.

"Padawan Tano, walk with me," came a gruff voice from behind her.

The Togruta whirled around and found herself staring at the chest plate of a clone armour. Which was painted in black and light grey, nothing like the sea of white armours filling up the rest of the hangar. She looked up and saw a command helmet with folded in antenna on one side.

"Pardon me?" she asked, taken aback.

The man sighed.

"I'm Captain Rex, commander of Torrent Company, General Skywalker's personal unit. I'm to escort you to meet the boss. Follow me, Lieutenant."

"Oh, great!" the padawan smiled and followed the clone who had turned around without paying her a second thought. Then she paused and glared at his back.

"Wait a minute! What do you mean a lieutenant?" exclaimed Ahsoka. As far as she knew even the newest padawan was supposed to start as a commander in the army. It wasn't that she cared much about the rank, but this smelt like another punishment... just like the trip to the agri corps she evaded thanks to masters Yoda and Plo Koon. It wasn't fair!

"That was the General's idea and High Command agreed. All padawans and most Jedi Knights who don't have military training or years of experience will start their career as commanders as junior officers or advisors to the generals and admirals..." Rex's voice was positively cheerful.

Or so it sounded to Ahsoka's ears. She growled quietly. Ahsoka was going to have a long conversation with her master. Once she found him. Tano gripped the clasps of her backpack and hurried after the Captain who was already halfway to a door at the far end of the hangar.

**=RK=**

Skywalker looked up from the data pad in his hands and smiled. Snips had just stepped on board. A small grin spread over his face. Ahsoka had always been a breath of fresh air in his life... Until his foolishness and Sidious' manipulations fucked up everything beyond belief. Vader's face became blank at that thought and he had to exercise some effort to keep his temper in check.

Vader returned his attention at the work at hand. The former Sith Lord was engaged formulating a plan for relieving Obi-Wan from the mess his former master had undoubtedly landed himself on Christophsis. From what he remembered of his time on that world, once the enemy space assets were neutralized, he would need to go in (preferably with heavily armed detachment of the 501st), blow up the damn shield generator, again, and let the bombers deal with the enemy troop concentrations in and around the capital.

Simple in theory. Now, pulling it off with minimal losses, that was something else, especially when Anakin had to consider that he would be leading green forces in combat. To make his life even more interesting, the kit his soldiers were issued was quite bad. He had mostly forgotten how... inadequate the equipment issued to the clones at the start of the war was. Yet, to be fair, the gear of his men hadn't improved as much as he would have liked during the Empire era either, though at that time he didn't particularly care about that. After all, then he had considered most if not all of them expendable, without a second thought. Something that had changed after his showdown with the emperor and the trip back in time.

Some time later, Anakin turned his head towards the door. "Enter!" he spoke aloud, and used the Force to open the way for his visitors. Rex marched in, his armoured bulk hiding the much smaller figure that was following him. The Captain stood at attention, saluting his superior officer, while Ahsoka moved to his right. Skywalker stared at the impossibly young Togruta for a moment. She looked even more like a kid than the first time he had met her.

"Thank you, Rex," Anakin returned the salute and floated the pad he was working on to his old friend. "Please go over my preliminary plan for Chistophsis. I want your recommendations and concerns about it ASAP. Dismissed."

"General!" the Clone made a perfect about-face and promptly exited Anakin's ready room.

Now, Skywalker could turn his complete attention to his one and future apprentice. He looked critically at her outfit, the same one she wore during the previous timeline. Not bad as casual clothes, but utterly inappropriate for a battlefield.

"Padawan Ahsoka Tano, welcome aboard," he greeted coolly,

"Ah... Hi!" she timidly waved a hand in his direction.

That prompted a raised eyebrow. The Snips he remembered was much more spirited than that, even when facing her Jedi Master for the first time amidst a ruined city. Then it clicked. The near miss with going to the kriffing Agri Corps probably had shaken her.

"Please take a sit," Anakin waved at the pair of comfortable chairs bolted to the deck in front of his desk.

Ahsoka reluctantly removed her backpack and placed it on the floor before sitting down. Skywalker could sense a flare of anger and indignation from the Togruta. She was hating the way the Council decisions were affecting her behaviour. Ahsoka took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. She looked at Anakin much more calmly than a moment earlier. He could feel her taking control of her emotions and doing her best to suppress them. Not that she had been particularly good at that, which wasn't a slight on her abilities in any way or form. If anything it would prove beneficial in the long term.

"So, Ahsoka, after another round of Council politics and less than stellar decision by that bunch of old fossils, you end up on my doorstep. Instead of being dumped in the Agri Corps, something if what I've heard about your talents would have been an utter waste," Anakin fixed her with a cool stare. "On the other hand, I'm a general who is about to lead troops into battle and has a kriffing war to win. Which mean that I don't have time to babysit someone who in no way, shape or form has been trained to be an officer. Yet, I'm supposed to entrust the lives of some of my men to your untested command capabilities... So, what am I to do with you, padawan Tano?" Anakin asked, barely keeping an amused smirk from spreading across his face.

Ahsoka gulped. That wasn't what she had been expecting from Anakin Skywalker. Like at all. A small part of her wondered if a vacation to the Agri Corps might have been a better idea... She opened her mouth to protest, but was silenced by a hand wave.

"In the few days until we deploy I can't do much to train you in the Jedi arts. However, you are going to take a crash course in tactics and leadership until we arrive. That is, after you get yourself fitted with some decent armor," Anakin smirked. "I have the best folks for that in mind," this time he was unable to keep his amusement from showing.


	9. Chapter 3 Part 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. It belongs to Disney. I make no money from this story.**

**Chapter 3: Of Force Adepts and Crime Lords**

**=KoF=**

**Part 2**

* * *

**Republic Cruiser "Valiant"**

**Task Force "Dagger" flagship**

**High Orbit over Christophsis**

In one moment they were surrounded by the distinctive bleakness of hyperspace. In the next, the sixcruisers, their escorts and four Assault Ships, returned to the galaxy at large. In front of them, Christophsis shone with emerald light, highlighting the silhouettes of a trio ofCIS battleshipsand theireight attending frigates. The Republic capital ships started launching their brood of fighters, preparing to meet the expected onslaught of Vultures.

Vader looked wishfully at the world ahead. Here he met Snips for the fist time, the energetic little spitfire. He smirked, remembering his shock when Ahsoka dropped her bombshell announcing that she was in fact his apprentice and not Obi-Wan's. Funny enough, in both time-lines Vader left her in Rex's custody so the captain could show her the ropes. Though this time, he specified that she in fact needed a rush course on tactics for junior officers.

Said young troublemaker was standing on his right, fidgeting in her custom made armor. Skywalker could sense her irritation at him and what she was made to wear even without the Force, but paid it no heed. It was small price to pay for keeping her in one piece. He wasn't about to assume that everything would turn out the same unless he changed something so better be safe than sorry. Thiswas a kriffing war and people got messedup all the time. He should know. No matter how much he hated the armored suit he had been sealed in for decades, Vader had to admit that the kriffing thing saved him a lot of trouble on multiple occasions. Then again, many of those times he would have gotten out just fine if he had been whole.

"So what's the plan, Master?" Snips grumbled.

He waved at the enemy battleshipsand its Munificent escorts blocking their way. "We make them focus their attention on us, then call in the bombers to make a precision hyperspace jump right on top of them."

It was tactic that the Rebel Alliance had often used with devastating success. He was almost giddy that he and his forces wouldn't be on the receiving end this time. Vader's only regret was that he wasn't strapped in the cockpit of a Y-Wing, but that wasn't his job. If fact, with few notable exceptions it hasn't been ever since he had become a General during the advent of the Clone wars. Not that it had stopped him from pulling various idiotic stunts the last time. He smirked. It wouldn't stop him from gettingback in the cockpit either, though he couldn't really afford to kriff around like in his youth.

"That's a bold tactic, General Skywalker." Admiral Yularen frowned.

"I'm sure our pilots can handle it. While this battle group has enough firepower to fight its way through anyway, we'll lose most of it slugging it out with the Seps."

"I hope your confidence isn't misplaced."

"Me too."

"We'll be in range in twenty seconds, sir!" the sensor operator announced.

"All Venators are to concentrate fire on the leading enemy battleship. Our escorts will handle the Munificents." Yularen ordered, while glancing at Vader, obviously waiting to be countermanded.

"What? I don't have the habit of countermanding orders when they make sense!"

Yularen shrugged and went on to command the battle, leaving Vader to ponder his situation. Oh, he was well aware what the problem was. It was just few weeks since the war began and already a lot of Jedi proved that they sucked as general… yet no one was showing any inclination of relieving them of command.

Which was inevitable, with Palpy being the Supreme Commander of the GAR and Yoda, and the Council apparently content to feed their charges to the hounds of war. Not to mention the obvious flaw of the Jedi – they were trained to be diplomats, peacekeepers and law enforcement – which was deterrent in a full scale war. Ironically, all that made it much easier for the Clones who weren't brainwashed or chipped to betray the Jedi when the Order came.

Vader's reminiscence of the past was derailed when Valiant opened fire, followed by the rest of the cruisers. For a moment, he was caught off guard by the decidedly underwhelming volume of fire, before remembering where he was. While the Venators were rather powerful ships for this day and age, they were decidedly under-gunned by the later Imperialdesigns that supplanted them. Which were rather good ships once all the teething troubles were phased out and the Stardestroyers matured. Which didn't help him feel that he was on board of an under-armed, obsolete vessel.

On the other hand it might be _Executor's _fault. That command cruiser might have spoiled him just a bit.

* * *

**=KoF=**

**Red One**

**Red Squadron**

**1stBomber Wing**

LO 091 was pushed back into his seat, when his Y-Wing bomber left Hyperspace and suddenly decelerated. The Clone's eyes never went to the sensor display as the FTL jump was complete, instead he simply looked out of the cockpit and went on afterburner. The heavily shielded machine which was wrapped around him eagerly darted forward, flying straight at the huge battleships in front of them.

"Red Actual to all Red elements. Concentrate on the weapon emplacements. Leave the kill for the rest of the Wing."

A chorus of Affirmatives answered the Lieutenant, who barely paid any attention to the acknowledgments. Instead, he was concentrating on his flying, avoiding the last ditch defensive fire of the behemoth they were advancing upon… which was little and ineffective. Even better, for once command knew what they were talking about and there were almost no Vultures in the vicinity of the bomber's targets. What few were there, were too busy fending off the GAR's own fighter forces, leaving the strike craft to have a free reign.

Leo allowed himself a small smile, when he avoided a flack barrage and put his bomber just a few meters above the armored hull of their target – far too close for the defensive weapons to be effective. Then he banked left and headed to the nearest juicy target – a bank of heavy turbolasers which were busy blasting at the fleet. A press of the trigger later and the emplacement was obliterated by a pair of proton torpedoes. Leo's bomber was caught on the fringes of the blast-wave, which nearly made him slam into the battleship's armor. However he managed to pull up just in time, only temporary losing his deflectors, when their energy field scrapped the hull of his target.

His new flight path led him straight towards the central sphere of the battleship, where it's communications antennas were located, nested between two heavy weapon nests. Leo grinned and activated his afterburner again, before he pressed the trigger and held it. A stream of torpedoes flew under the nose of his bomber, homing on the juicy targets. Four obliterated the closest gun nest in a blinding explosions. Six more slammed into the primary comm array, turning it into so much shrapnel. That explosion was enough to confuse most of the remaining projectiles, which missed their intended target, impacting the armor belt of the battleship for little to no damage. A single torpedo struck the second gun nest, disabling one of the weapons, but leaving the rest mostly intact.

A misfortune that was corrected few seconds later, when Red Three put two shots straight on target.

Red One pulled up, while dividing his attention between the sensor screen and looking around. With the heavy jamming put out from both sides, there was no guarantee that a lucky Vulture wouldn't be able to sneak on him before his instruments could warn him.

The good news was that no droid got lucky and attacked Leo. The bad – he could see the IFF of only four of his squadron mates. He hoped that the rest were simply drowned out by the enemy ECM.

"All Red elements, go for another run." Leo ordered.

Leo's bomber banked under a wild barrage and made a turn that would have torn in two a craft without inertial compensator, before heading back towards the wounded battleship. Their target was still somewhat operational despite the initial strike. It was time to correct that.

* * *

**=KoF=**

**Republic Cruiser "Valiant"**

**Task Force "Dagger" flagship**

**High Orbit over Christophsis**

"Weapons, concentrate fire on target Delta." _Valiant's _captain ordered when the last enemy battleship was silenced, leaving only the enemy frigates and the shredded remain of their Vulture squadrons in play.

"Re-task all bomber wings. Send them after those Munificents." Admiral Yularen indicated a pair of enemy ships which were so far unscratched.

While the battle was winding down, Vader remained impassive, calmly observing the tactics of both side as well as the reactions of the cruiser's crew. The Admiral remained calm and collected while he directed the action, just as the Force Adept remembered him to be. The Clones were model of professionalism too, which was a far cry from the later years of the Imperial Age, when the bar for entry in the military had been lowered more than Vader liked. However, Ahsoka's reactions were most interesting.

While she wasn't a total stranger to war, after all the little Togruta was present on Geonosis, she was refreshingly innocent… Something that Vader had forgotten how it felt. Her huge eyes were darting this way and that, her expression an open book. Even without the Force, Vader would have felt her elation when an enemy ship went down and the anguish when she sensed the death of clones as Republic escorts died. That was underlined, when Ahsoka gasped just as the _Onderon_, the only Venator lost in the battle, was shattered by concentrated enemy fire.

He had to do something about Ahsoka. Getting herself so easily shaken… Vader frowned. That was a good way for someone to get themselves killed, especially when they were following the Jedi Creed and trying to suppress their emotions. Vader would have his hands full with Snips, yet he was torn, wondering how exactly he was going to train her.

While he still considered himself a Sith, something that would remain with him to whatever end awaited him (preferably in the far distant future), he knew that it wasn't what he wanted for his apprentice. Or his future children for that matter…

Vader shrugged. He would have a lot of time to ponder on that problem, once the immediate crisis was resolved.

"Good work, Admiral. Once the remaining enemy forces are neutralized, take us into low orbit over the capital. You have free reign to take out all enemy ground units outside Chaleydonia." Vader turned towards his apprentice. "Snips, walk with me. We are going on a little field trip. It should be educational."

**=KoF=**

**Chaleydonia City**

**Christophsis**

"They are breaking through!" Cody shouted, hoping that he would be heard over the deafening sounds of war.

"Hold the line! We can't let them reach the cannons!" Kenobi shouted back.

"That's easy to say..." The Commander muttered. He was crouching behind a demolished section of the road, which made for a nice makeshift cover. It had saved his life too, more than once.

Not for much longer. The enemy shield had almost reached the GAR positions, with the droids safely nested under it's umbrella. The kriffing tin-cans could shoot through it to their non-existent hearts content too, while Cody's brothers had to fall back again and again, under punishing barrages.

He glanced back. The cannons were in a depression, just a few hundred meters back, which kept them out of LOS from the enemy. It was the only reason they were still in one piece too, but that wouldn't last. In just a few minutes, the droids were going to overrun their position and then all would be over bar the screaming... and the killing.

"Any word on our reinforcements?" Cody shouted at a nearby trooper, while reloading his Carbine.

"No, sir! We are still jammed." The Soldier managed to answer before a stray bolt struck the side of his helmet, spinning him around

The Commander snarled and leaned out of his cover.

"Hold the line to the last man!" he shouted.

The shield was about to overtake his position and the only reason why he wasn't neck deep in tin-cans was the General, who was engaging the enemy in close quarters combat.

"It's good day to die. I guess..." Cody muttered.

The shield overtook his cover and he opened fire.

There was no sight from their promised reinforcements.


	10. Chapter 3 Parts 3,4 and Interlude

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. It belongs to Disney. I make no money from this story.**

**Chapter 3: Of Force Adepts and Crime Lords**

**=KoF=**

****Part 3****

**10 KM above**

**Chaleydonia City**

**Christophsis**

"Master, you are insane!" Ahsoka's voice rang in Vader's helmet. The Sith Lord chortled in amusement.

They were in the back of an assault shuttle, which was heading for the capital of the world below them. At terminal velocity and accelerating with no intention of slowing down.

"Sir, are you sure about this?" Rex added his two credits.

"Absolutely." The Sith Lord grinned. It was too bad they couldn't see his smile because of his helmet. Then he slammed his armored fist on a conveniently placed large button and the ramp at the back of the shuttle slid open.

"Now, jump or I'll throw you out."

"Yep. You are insane." Ahsoka grumbled before being gently shoved out of the shuttle.

Rex shook his head and followed her before Anakin jumped out too. Below them, the shuttle continued to accelerate. It would keep on its course until it slammed in the shield covering a significant part of the city, unleashing a kiloton level of force. It would make a nice little distraction for their landing.

At the same time, more units from 501st Legion were descending through the clouds, escorted by whole fighter wings. They would land as close as possible to what little remained from Kenobi's army and rush to reinforce the survivors. Meanwhile Vader and his squad of hand picked clones were going to shut down the shield generator so the remaining CIS units could be taken out with air strikes.

That was the plan anyway. The fact that it called for a jump from nearly ten kilometers, then passing through the edge of a

multiple-kiloton level explosion, before landing in a city swarming with a killer robots wasn't something that Snips approved of. On the other hand, Vader hadn't had such fun in ages. Something that was clear to everyone in his strike team, because he was laughing like a maniac during their free-fall.

"Sir, I have to agree with the kid." Rex muttered while gliding through the air.

"Nah. I've never been more sane. Besides this is just pure fun!" Vader chuckled.

Below them, the shuttle slammed into the shield engulfing Chaleydonia. The city disappeared from sight, replaced by a eye-searing flash of light. Only their visors polarizing prevented the group of skydivers from being blinded. Even at that distance, the thermal pulse of the kinetic strike was enough to raise the temperature inside their armors enough to make them swim in sweat. Moments moments later, the formation in which they were descending was broken as the shock-wave hit. While it wasn't powerful enough to injure, not at this range anyway, it was still strong enough to send them in uncontrolled tumble through the air.

Anakin laughed in delight, before using the Force to stabilize their flight and guide his apprentice and soldier towards the correct part of the city. He looked down to see smoke rising from a rippling shield. As expected, the defensive field had held, leaving the city it protected without a scratch. The same however couldn't be said for the few enemy craft which were flying CAP overhead before the shuttle hit.

When they were less than a kilometer above the ground, Vader used the Force to activate the rocket pack strapped to his back. It kicked like an angry banta as it started slowing his descent. Ahsoka and the troopers followed his example all the while he guided them towards a nearby skyscraper, which had it's roof just above the edge of the shield.

**=KoF=**

"Master, I hate you!" Snips groused after getting rid of her now useless rocket pack.

"Don't be like that! This was awesome! We are definitely doing it again!" Vader grinned. He hadn't have such fun since forever!

"Sir, we are ready to move." Rex reported, interrupting their banter.

"Fine. Follow me. We have a shield generator to disable." With those words, Anakin led his strike team inside the skyscraper. They needed to be lower to the ground to use the grappling hooks and metal wire attached to their weapons as an express way to the city proper below.

**=KoF=**

**Chaleydonia City**

**Christophsis**

Obi-Wan Kenobi had a grim expression on his face. This wasn't how he imagined his end. The Jedi Master was cut off from his troops and alive only thanks to his reflexes and the will of the Force. He was trying really hard no to think about the fate of said soldiers. He could feel all but a handful die as the battle progressed from a mere disaster to a catastrophe.

The fact that he was atop one of the tri-droids besieging the tattered remnants of his army helped a bit too. He really, didn't have much time to think or curse himself for a fool. He should have abandoned the artillery and had his men scatter through out the city. That way a lot more of them would still be alive and they would pose some threat to the droid army doing its best to kill them all.

Instead, here he was – making his last stand in a desperate attempt to buy his clones a few more seconds of life.

The Force screamed in warning and Obi-Wan jumped down, barely evading a wall of crimson death as hundreds of B1s opened fire on the Tri-Droid he was standing on. The cheap blasters of the flimsy machines merely scorched the paint of the armored machine, unfortunately dealing it no real damage. That meant a simple thing, Kenobi had to deal with three of the towering engines of destruction as well as a whole division of B1s and Supper Battle droids. Those were the enemies in his immediate vicinity, with more down the highway the sore remnant of his troops were desperately trying to block.

It was all for nothing. A whole legion wiped out without a gain for the Republic. It made the Jedi Master angry. Oh, he had no problem dying to uphold justice or protect others. However, doing so for virtually nothing, even worse, taking thousands of clones with him, that was another matter.

Obi-Wan knew better. He knew where his anger led.

Yet, now, at the end of the line, Kenobi found out that he no longer cared. It wasn't like he was going to live for it to be an issue. Even if reinforcements arrived right now, he and his soldiers were done. Would be dead before friendly units could reach their position through the shield.

The Jedi snarled when he felt the closest thing to a friend he had among the clones die. His azure lightsaber slashed through an offending droid, his blade moving faster and easier than ever before. He felt power washing over him, strengthening his tired limbs, making each strike stronger. Faster.

Another clone died, and Obi-Wan shouted, putting all the pain, resentment and anger he felt at what was happening in that single action. And the Force itself responded. He could feel it warping around him, his lungs straining and then it passed through him. Kenobi's shout became one with the Force, the sound waves enhanced to impossible degree. The B1s in front of him simply shattered, their mangled parts flying as a shrapnel in a semi-circle. Even the closest Tri-Droid staggered for a moment.

For a second Obi-Wan froze, gasping for breath. He felt cold, as if he was in the middle of a blizzard. Then he was moving, pushing himself to the limit as the Force was screaming warning to him. He was a blur, deflecting and dodging blaster bolts from all directions, still alive only thanks to the endless hours spent practicing Soresu.

It wasn't enough. The two Tri-Droids between which he found himself concentrated their attention on him. He deflected a laser bolt, avoided another, the explosion staggering him. Kenobi acted on instinct when he trust his left palm up, pushing as much Force behind the motion as he could. A concussion missile slammed into his impromptu shield, detonating a meter from him. The explosion engulfed him with fire and shrapnel, burning his hand and petering his form with molten metal.

Obi-Wan screamed in pain and rolled forward, barely registering the danger he was sensing. The missile sent from the second towering machine blew up farther behind him, but this time there wasn't a barrier made of the Force to protect him. The shock-wave picked Kenobi up and threw him over the edge of the highway. All he could register was a wave of heat and pain, and then Obi-Wan knew no more.

**=KoF=**

**Part 4**

**Chaleydonia City**

**Christophsis**

"It's a trap. Not even the clankers are dumb enough to leave just a squad of B1s to guard the shield generator." Rex grumbled. He was looking through a shattered window on one of the skyscrapers overlooking their target.

"While I agree with you, Rex, you should remember that it's a big galaxy out there." Vader smirked. "In my experience, there is no limit to peoples and droids stupidity that I know of."

"And we are trying to save them all, why?" Rex grumbled. "What's the plan, sir?"

"Heavy weapons troopers and the sniper are on overwatch while we sneak closer. When we're in position, they'll provide us with covering fire. If we're lucky, that'll be sufficient to place the charges and leg it." The Sith said.

"If as usual we aren't lucky?" The sniper asked.

"Then it's the fun way – we fight our way in, place the charges and blow the kriffing thing sky high." Anakin smirked. Personally, he was all about plan B, but he had to be considerate this time – those were his apprentice and the fellows of his 501st – not just a bunch of random Stormtroopers, most of whom were flash cloned idiots. "Snips, you're staying close to me. I'm not going to lose my brand new Padawan on her first mission." Vader paused for a moment. "I order you not to die like imbeciles." He grinned at the Clones, who weren't reassured by his bloodthirsty expression.

"I'm happy to comply, sir." Rex perked up.

"Yes, sir!"

"Me too!"

The rest of the Clones chorused in unison.

"Good. Move on!"

A few minutes later, everyone was in position and the dumb clankers were none the wiser. Vader drew an Ion grenade from his pouch and smiled viciously. Last time around, he almost never used those toys – they were murder on his artificial arm.

This time, he was whole.

"Sir, what are you doing!" Snips hissed quietly when she saw him.

"This simply reeks of a trap. Either mines, concealed weapon emplacements or droids under our feet. I'm going to spring it." Anakin answered nonchalantly.

"What happened with sneak in and out without being noticed?" Ahsoka asked.

"No plan survives contact with the enemy. That's why we call the kriffing bastards the enemy in the first place. Among other things..." Vader trailed off darkly. He activated the grenade and threw it over the half-demolished wall they were using for cover.

"I don't think I like your plans, Master." Snips muttered, making Anakin smile. She hasn't seen yet one of his plans. Not really.

The grenade blew up sending a pulse of Ionized particles, which simply fused all the electronics of the cheaply built B1s. A moment later the ground began trembling as buried droids started shaking in their holes.

"What is that?!" Ahsoka exclaimed and gripped her lightsaber tightly.

"We just sprang the ambush. GO!" Vader cheerfully shouted and vaulted over the wall. He ignited his blade and thew another grenade at the far end of the platform containing the generator. The shield device was protected from such a paltry Ionic disruption, however the same couldn't be said about the droids buried around it.

A sniper shot, followed by heavy repeaters opening up announced the Clones joining the fun. A moment later, Rex and the rest of the team started shooting from their cover a hundred meters back.

Ten seconds later it was all over and Vader got to take apart just three droids. When the last one was cut in half, the Sith turned around in a search for another target only to see Ahsoka dispatching the last enemy with a little less vigor that he would like, but that was a problem for another time.

"That's it?!" The General exclaimed.

"What?! Do you want more droids?!" Snips snapped at him.

"Yeah." Vader muttered. He deactivated his blade and hanged it on his belt while rubbing the back of his head. "This was no fun – I expected more of a fight." Yet… This was how a properly ran engagement should run – hit the enemy fast and hard, take them out before they knew what was happening. It was a textbook assault, well if you had someone with his capabilities anyway.

It was too bad that usually the enemy wasn't so obliging to let you sneak up and set up at leisure.

"Snips, set the charges, we'll cover you." Anakin ordered and kicked the remains of a fried B1.

Vader wanted to get out of here and find out what happened with Kenobi. If anyone was going to kill his former master, that would be him – not anyone else! Besides, Anakin hadn't really decided what to do about Obi-Wan. He had heaps of reasons to hate the old man… yet there was a part of him that regretted cutting Kenobi down on the Death Star. A part that was perhaps even willing to give the man another chance.

Unless Obi-wan really got himself killed just to spite Vader – he wouldn't put it past the irritating old fossil… who wasn't that old nowadays. Hell, they were about the same age nowadays!

"Done!" Snips shouted.

"Good job! Lets make ourselves scarce."

Soon enough, they were behind some solid cover down street. Anakin nodded at his Padawan and Ahsoka blew up the charges.

A bright flash, followed by a heat and overpressure wave announced the Separatists losing the city. Moments later, fighters dived to strafe enemy columns and bombers wings circling above the city released their payloads.

In a few minutes, the airstrikes tore out the heart of multiple CIS divisions, halting them in their tracks. With the shields down, reinforcements were free to pour into the city en masse and were able to swarm or call bombardment on any remaining enemy strong point.

Two hours later, the battle for Chaleydonia was effectively over, though the Clone troopers would be dealing with hold outs and isolated groups of droids for the next week.

**=KoF=**

**Interlude: On butterfly wings I**

**Operating room 09**

**GAR Field Hospital**

**Chaleydonia City**

**Christophsis**

"Seal the room. Authentication C253KLB. Disable audio sensors." Vader ordered. The Medical Droids busy working on Obi-Wan's body beeped in agreement and went on cutting him open while communicating wirelessly.

The Sith Lord found a delicious irony in the situation. Granted, Kenobi wasn't burned as bad as he was in that future – just a bunch of first and second degree wounds from close explosions. There were a few fragments that had penetrated his armor, but that wasn't really important. The sharp stop when Obi-Wan had been thrown off that sky-way was the primary cause of the damage, which was severe – multiple broken bones, shattered ribs piercing the lungs and the worst of all – a broken spine. In three separate places.

It was a miracle that Kenobi lived long enough for SAR to find him once the shield was down and the enemy routed. At least that's what the medical crew told Anakin, though Vader had another theory – Obi-Wan was simply too stubborn to die from a kriffing fall.

"Done by a bunch of clankers. It's disappointing, my old master." Vader smiled as he watched the droids work. "Supremely ironic as well. Do you know how I longed for our places to be reversed? For twenty years I was sealed in that kriffing torture chamber resembling a live support suit and here we are today. Somehow I'm back when everything started and you, my master are the one being patched back together. I'm whole and you'll need a lot of gadgets to keep you moving."

Anakin laughed sadly. He never really imagined that he would be in this position. Whole and hale, while Obi-Wan was the one under the knife. Even now, Kenobi was lucky. His severed spine could be fixed by electronic bypass. His lungs were cut to ribbons by pieces of his ribs. Though they would recover in time, the Jedi would need to wear a breath mask for years, perhaps longer, if he was to do anything strenuous like playing with the Separatists again.

Other than that, Obi-Wan got off light and would even have just a few scars to give him more rugged look.

In the end, it was nothing like the wreck that remained of Anakin after Kenobi cut his limbs and left him to burn.

The laughter turned bitter. True, there was a part of him that was very satisfied by this outcome, of a vengeance that was finally served even if it wasn't by Vader's own hands. Yet… There was a part of Anakin that was simply bitter, almost queasy as he watched the machines cutting into his former master.

Kenobi was lucky that there was some anesthetics and that he was out for his operation. Anakin still could feel the phantom pain of his burns and cold machines cutting into his cooked flesh. He shuddered at the memory and averted his eyes for a moment.

"Vengeance!" Vader spat. As it turned out, while somewhat satisfying, it wasn't all it was cranked out to be. "The Force has a sense of irony, my master. Our roles are completely reversed this time around. I wonder what's next? Will the woman you love die because of you, like happened with my Padme in the future? Will that loss drive you insane? Satine, was it..." Vader grumbled to himself… and he remembered.

He remembered teasing Obi-Wan about the Duchess and having fun on his expense. He remembered how the old man felt in the force the few time he was around her and let his guard down.

Anakin remembered hearing that she had died when that Zabrak former apprentice of Sidious couped the Mandalorian government and took power. _He remembered how despondent Obi-Wan was when he returned from a secret mission he had been dispatched to at the same time… _And finally, Anakin was able to connect the dots, though it was a lifetime too late.

Then again, perhaps not.

For a moment, Anakin wondered how he could forget about Kenobi and Satine in the first place, then he shook his head. It wasn't like it really mattered. It hadn't happened yet. Not in this timeline or whatever.

"Kriff me. You and the Duchess. You loved her before she was murdered. You might have listened if I told you the truth." Anakin had a revelation. Seeing Obi-Wan in this state, made him look at the man with different eyes. Without worrying about hiding his relationship with Padme, he could think more clearly. After twenty years to ponder over his mistakes, in a moment when he simply couldn't blame Obi-Wan for everything, Anakin saw the man in a different light.

As his brother who in fact had been in the same situation.

Vader's mind rand through what he remembered happening. Then the though about what he believed was happening at the end of the war and how it may had differed from the way things had actually unfolded.

"Sidios, you kriffing bastard!" The Sith hissed and shook with fury. Oh, Vader knew he had been played, though it was just started to dawn on him how utterly his other master had manipulated him until he had nothing else but the other Sith left.

He wasn't going to let that happen. Not this time around. Anakin would keep Padme safe and they will have the life they deserved. Together. Happy. He vowed to make it so.

The Sith returned his attention to Kenobi and sighed.

"I never really knew. You and Satine." He chuckled bitterly and shook his head. "I'm almost sure that Palpatine manipulated Maul to launch that Coup. Kriff it, the hutt-spawn might have arranged it somehow. He did train Maul after all." Anakin sighed. "Take my advice, my former master. Once you're put back together, go to Mandalore and make sure that your girlfriend stays alive this time around. I doubt that the Force would give a second chance to any of us."

"_Anakin, what in the Nine Corellian hells have you been rambling about?" _A muffled mental noise sounded in Vader's head.

It froze the Sith for a moment until he traced it back to the Force bond he had with his former master. A bond that in this day and age while very weak was in fact existing.

"How the kriff are you conscious?!" Anakin asked incredulous.

"_We were out of most meds for weeks. We had left a bit of painkillers for the most severe cases. I guess I apply. We didn't have proper anesthesia either and I guess what's left isn't good enough to keep me under." _

Anakin just stood there and stared speechless. Obi-Wan's chest was opened and the droids had multiple appendages in _each._

"_I'm just glad that the local anesthesia is still working, because this isn't something I relish really experiencing."  
_

"That's probably your severed spine."

"_Damn."_

"Don't worry, they'll fix it! The droids told me they could do it easily!" Anakin stammered, while wondering how the kriff he ended in this situation.

"_Good to know. Now stop stalling. What's this about Padme and Satine DYING?! And time travel?"_

"You want to speak about that now?!"

"_The droids have their arms in my chest. While I'm awake. I prefer to think about time travel no matter how outlandish it is."_

"I blame my luck and the Force."

"_You have no right to complain of luck right now!" _

"Don't I? I was in this same situation, with intact spine, third degree burns along most of my body! No limbs after you cut them and left me burn and then Sidious had his droids patch me up while I was awake and so I could feel EVERY KRIFFING THING!" Vader shouted.

"_You'd better start from the start, my apprentice. At least time travel would explain some of the stunts you pulled off on Geonosis. I should know. I was the unfortunate sod who had to train you."_

"Very funny. The beginning? Perhaps everything started on Naboo when you cut down Maul and left him for dead, though the slippery bastard survived. Perhaps it started when you decided to take me as a Padawan. Perhaps it started just before the battle of Geonosis when my mother was murdered by the Sand people after Yoda said I should ignore my visions. I don't know here to start, Obi-Wan."

Kenobi winced. _"Let's try something else. What's that about Palpatine and Sidious?"_

For a moment Anakin just stared at his former Master. A small part of him wanted to stage and accident. It was tempted even – doing so would remove a lot of possible complications. He could try lying or evading. Again. That didn't work too well for anyone but Sidious the last time around.

Or he could try something different… Like trusting the man who was his brother for more than a decade.

Vader wanted to simply reach with the Force and squash the problem. It would be so easy, so simple and no one would ever know.

Anakin was torn. He was satisfied – Kenobi had finally gotten his just deserts. Now there might be a chance to change that awful future he had to suffer once. Just… was trusting Obi-Wan a good idea? He had loathed the man for two decades.

Actually, scratch that – the cripple that was Vader in his suit was the one keeping old grudges alive. Anakin on the other hand… He was alive. Whole. And if he played his cards right this time – he would have a lifetime with Padme and his Empire too.

He took a deep breath. Raised his right hand and wondered.

Vader was ready to squeeze.

Anakin just sighed and drew his finger through his hair, relishing in the feeling.

"Well Obi-Wan, it's like that. The Sith Lord, you know about it right? The one who was behind the Naboo fiasco, the one controlling the Separatists through Dooku?"

"_Of course." _Kenobi sounded peeved.

"Well, he's Palpatine and in an about four years he would have given the order of what was called operation Knightfall – the destruction of the Jedi – the Grand revenge of the Sith. It began just moments after I fell to the Dark Side." Anakin paused and relished at the shock he felt coming from Obi-Wan. "Do you want to know more? You'll be here for some time. Perhaps I should just go out and arrange for some proper painkillers and anesthesia..."

"_Don't you dare Anakin!" _Obi-Wan's mental voice shouted. _"Start explaining and better make it good!" _

"Hey, I'm no longer a Jedi! You can't order me around any more!"

"_Thank the Force for that. At least you aren't my responsibility any longer. Now! Sidious. Palpatine. The fall of the Jedi! Start explaining!"_

"When the kriff would I learn to keep my mouth shut?!" Anakin wondered aloud. In the back of his mind, Vader once again suggested the permanent solution to the current predicament.


	11. AN - Missed update

I apparently done goofed and failed to post Chapter 3 Part 3 and just went with 4 and the Interlude. It's added in now so you may want to re-read the first part of the last update!


	12. Chapter 4 Parts 1&2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. It belongs to Disney. I make no money from this story.**

**Chapter 4: The plans of Sith and men**

**=KoF=**

**Part 1**

**Conference room A**

**Republic cruiser "Dauntless"**

**Hyperspace**

"General Skywalker! Congratulations for the great victory!" Palpatine's holo-image beamed at Vader. The old Sith looked mightily pleased with the situation.

Truth to be told, Vader was too – mostly. Unfortunately, Kenobi was still alive and was likely to eventually recover, however the part of him that was Anakin Skywalker was still strong enough to keep him from dealing with the old Jedi. For now, the Sith Lord had to keep himself content with his former Master being temporarily crippled.

"Victory you say?" Yoda's voice grated on Vader's nerves. "Tactical surely it was. Strategic loss it was." The small green troll sighed.

"I know." Anakin answered quietly. "I got the final tally before we left – there are a dozen walking wounded left from Kenobi's army. The rest are either dead, permanently crippled or out of the war for weeks to months. The latter for the majority of the survivors."

"The Separatists can rebuild the forces you destroyed within weeks." The third holo-image, that of Ki-Adi-Mundi muttered. "We aren't so fortunate."

"I'm afraid that our esteemed Jedi friends speak sense." Palpatine lowered his head in a masterful display of faked regret. Vader was sure that the older Sith Lord was ensuring that the Jedi standing next to him would feel nothing but his regret about the loss of life.

Even now, after being that man's pawn for more than two decades, Vader could still be surprised by how easy Sidious could play the role of a harmless old man. There were times since he came back that even he was tempted to believe the charade.

The time-traveler stamped down a smile. For the first time he had the upper hand and only needed to bid his time to destroy his old master. He couldn't wait.

The dark thoughts were pushed to the side as Anakin surged forth and reassessed control within their shared mind.

"That only makes my current mission all that more important." The former Jedi stated the obvious.

"Correct." Mundi nodded his large head. "With the virtual destruction of General Kenobi's army, we simply can't afford to lose the units fighting in the Outer Rim. In fact, we can't afford the current casualty rates – something that can only change once we've secured supply routes for our armies there."

"I'll do my best to rescue and return Jabba's son intact." Anakin promised. He stiffened and lowered his gaze. "However," Vader continued, "We have to take into account the possibility that the Hutts will double cross us regardless. The Separatists can offer them much more than we ever could – they can promise and deliver that the kriffing criminals are left to operate in peace once the war is over. I don't believe that such an agreement would be politically acceptable. Anyway, it will be a disaster in the long term even if the Senate agrees."

Three pairs of eyes looked sharply at Skywalker.

"That's a fear my advisers and I share." Palpatine nodded sagely. "What do you all suggest?"

"We can't afford to fight the Hutts at this time." Adi-Mundi sighed. It was clear to all, that the old Jedi wasn't pleased by the necessity of dealing with the Hutt cartels.

"A better choice we have not." Yoda didn't sound ecstatic either.

"Perhaps..."Anakin trailed off. He straightened up and his face transformed into a cold mask. "Unless I'm successful in retrieving Jabba's son. It might be better if the child remains safe in Jedi custody on Coruscant – to ensure that the Confederacy won't use him against either us or Jabba himself."

Just for a moment, Vader could swear he saw surprise and dark amusement flicker through Sidious' eyes, though the Sith had his composure back under control before the shocked Jedi could notice anything at all wrong with the Chancellor.

"Skywalker..." Yoda rumbled. "Kidnapping you suggest." The Grand-master's long ears were flat along his skull as he spoke in a clipped, almost angry tone.

"Indeed. General Skywalker, we're Jedi! Representatives of the Galactic Republic! To even think that we can step so low as to even contemplating kidnapping a babe an using him against his father… That's simply unthinkable!" Adi-Mundi snapped. "It seems that you leaving the Order either made you even more reckless or it was the best decision for the Jedi." The old man added.

"A whole army died on Chaleydonia. Hundreds of thousands of civilians as well with many more wounded or dispossessed. They died for us, for the Republic. I'll contemplate anything that can bring us victory faster and end the suffering! To do anything else would be a betrayal of my Oath as a General in the Grand army of the Republic!" Vader declared.

The Jedi loved their obsolete views and rules – the Republic too, with the added "bonus" of unbelievable corruption. He was going to make them choke on those things before everything was said and done.

"Besides, I've done nothing! I merely made a suggestion, unless you're going to tell me that it would be better for the child to be raised as a gangster instead under the protection of the Jedi? Besides if anyone entertains my suggestion, it would be until the end of the war or at least until we've secured alternative supply routes to the Outer Rim." Vader did his best to look as innocence impersonated, though he had his doubts on how well it went.

"It's a novel, but radical idea." Palpatine made placating gesture – he was playing well in his role of a mediator. "My friend, while I can see where you're coming from," Sidious glanced pointedly at the fuming Jedi, "I don't believe that your idea can be considered as acceptable. Besides, we aren't the Hutts. We aren't thugs dealing with kidnapping and extortion."

Vader lowered his gaze again and it was all he could do not to laugh. As the Supreme Commander of the Imperial military, he could attest that the Empire had been condoning black ops concerning kidnapping and blackmail. When it worked, it helped keep his competent people alive.

"Anyway, it's all theoretical. I still have to retrieve the child intact." Anakin shrugged, while internally he was busy glaring at Vader – something that pleased the Sith Lord to no end.

"Is this the kind of general the Republic wants?" Adi-Mundi turned to the Chancellor as he asked.

Palpatine smiled sadly. "Apparently it's the one we need. This was his first command and Anakin just won one of the greatest military victories in the last thousand years. I can't justify censoring a man who wins over a disagreement about a over a single radical suggestion."

"We'll be arriving shortly. I have a mission to plan. General Skywalker, out." Vader made sure that the connection was severed and laughed. It was good to be him this time around.

His laughter died out and he frowned. He had to make sure that he got the damn mini-Jabba in one piece. The little slug would be a valuable bargaining chip.

**=KoF=**

**Palpatine's private residence**

**Coruscant**

Sidious was within a meditation chamber carefully hidden into one of his private retreats. Officially, the large loft was owned by one of the wealthier businessmen on Coruscant, but for all intents and purposes it was one of the Sith Lord's bases of operation.

It was a place where he could scheme in peace and recover after a long week or month of constant charade and political games. Dealing with the Senate as a day job was more than enough to test even the almost infinite patience and self-discipline of someone like Sidious.

Besides, this retreat was quite special – it contained a lot of his Dark Side artifacts on Coruscant and more importantly, it had a built in chamber that helped focus the Force when he meditated and foresaw the future. Four powerful artifacts and a single ancient holocron acted as a focal points to increase his power and make sure that he could get reasonably accurate long term sense for the likely possible futures.

Sidious wasn't a fool – he didn't believe in a destiny, fate or the will of the Force. He knew that a resourceful man with a plan and warning could overcome those things. Blindly following old prophecies and murky glimpses of a possible future – that was left for the Jedi. The Sith Lord sneered at the very thought. He had some of the true history of his kind… and their ancient enemies. Sidious knew that the Jedi were in a decline, in a stagnation that made them much weaker than those from the last war against the Sith. Despite that, he wasn't going to underestimate them. After all, right now there were only two real Sith and a bunch of Dark Jedi with delusions of grandeur arrayed against more than nine thousand Order members… and that was only the Coruscanti kind. However, they were the most numerous and influential. Once they were crushed, Sidious would be able to move on the other, smaller Jedi sects and enclaves of Force Adepts.

Nevertheless, that was a problem for the future. He was busy solving a certain mystery – ever since Geonosis, Skywalker was a different man. Initially, Sidious believed that the boy had fallen and that was all there was to know about the changes and demonstrated power. However, as time passed and he studied Anakin closely, through personal contact and covert surveillance, the Sith Lord began to have his doubts.

Oh, Anakin had somehow fallen – of that Sidious was sure within the week. Despite that, Skywalker was just turning seventeen. It would be half a decade at best before he could really come into his Force powers, no matter how much raw talent and strength he demonstrated. Yet… What both Dooku and the AARs from Geonosis, on both sides, said was that Anakin had suddenly made a tremendous jump in both capabilities and power. Much more than simply turning to the Dark Side could explain.

Raw strength in the Force was good, vital even. However, it meant little without a lot of knowledge, a ton of training and experience – by all accounts Anakin lacked quite a lot in two of those departments and the Jedi training… it simply wasn't enough of an explanation. Not for Sidious.

That's why, after he spoke with Anakin earlier in the day and once again was surprised by the changes in the young man, Palpatine arranged to have the evening off and slipped away from anyone who was watching him to come here.

He needed to meditate on the problem, to pierce the veil of the Force and see how this different Anakin was going to alter the possible futures. That was important – getting a reliable insight would permit Sidious to tailor his plans that much better and if needed to make a few more contingencies. The latter wasn't as vital as refining his main plans; after all, the Sith Lord had already prepared responses to every conceivable situation.

**=KoF=**

**Part 2**

**B'omarr Monastery**

**Teth**

**Wild Space**

**Vader was angry. Strike that, he was furious!**

"Scan again! Search the whole kriffing plateau if you have to!" Skywalker snapped

Rex saluted and sprinted away from the general, to carry out his orders of course. The fact that being around Skywalker right now _felt_ like someone was threading above your own grave had nothing to do with that. Like at all.

The General glared at the demolished remains of battle droids. His plan had worked like a charm – a _very _low level shot from _Dauntless' _ion canons to soften up the droids and dispose off the more flimsy ones, followed by a direct airborne assault a few minutes before half a dozen assault shuttles slammed int the courtyard and disgorged even more soldiers.

The Ionic strike had either destroyed outright or scrambled any droid not within the temple itself, where they were protected by the dense stone it was made of. Even the tanks and AA emplacements were temporarily disabled, giving Vader and his airborne troops a small window of opportunity to land without any resistance to speak of. By the time reinforcements from within the temple could react to the attack, Anakin's men had taken out all enemy heavy equipment in the open.

They had more than enough missile launchers to deal with any unexpected surprise, like the platoon of droidekas and two tanks which were inside the monastery itself. Needless to say, the heavy weapons teams had a field day with the enemy who had only one way out. Once that was done, Vader and Ahsoka led their unit inside just as the shuttles arrived. A short but vicious brawl later, the remaining droids were dealt with.

That's when Vader knew they should have found the little worm – shortly before Ventress arrived with enemy reinforcements. He had planned for that too – there were three light cruisers and four bomber squadrons waiting in hyperspace for a distress call from the _ Dauntless. _

There was only one little problem with that plan.

Vader glared at the place he remembered that Ahsoka was supposed to find the slug.

There was no baby Hutt here. The former Jedi could sense no baby within the old temple, though considering his mental state right now, that was no guarantee. The hand-held scanners, which some of the Clones had couldn't find Hutt life-signs anywhere nearby either.

"Sergeant!" Vader's head snapped up as he felt a group of Clones approaching. "Get the rest of your platoon and start searching this damn rock from top to bottom! I want the Hutt found! On the double!"

"Sir, yes sir!" The NCO saluted and started issuing orders of his own.

"Master, are you all right?" A timid, almost scared voice asked from behind.

Vader whirled around and his hand instinctively fell on the hilt of his lightsaber. Ahsoka recoiled and took a step back when she saw his furious expression and a pair of glowing orange eyes. For a long moment, Vader continued to glare. The Sith became rigid when he saw and _felt _her fear. He remembered facing his former apprentice in the future – after he fell, after she _knew_ that he had become Vader.

She had been furious, magnificent. She had grown up into a warrior who was a match for him.

Vader's expression softened and he almost smiled. They were no longer enemies. She was in fact his apprentice once again. He sighed. Right now, she was a scared kid too, just like he was when Obi-Wan took him as an apprentice.

The fact that he was going all Sith thanks to his frustration, wasn't helping the matter either.

"Yes, apprentice. I'm all right. Just angry and frustrated."

"That leads to the Dark Side." Ahsoka's huge eyes stared into his. "But I think you know all about that."

"Yes. Yes, I do." Vader spoke quietly. "I didn't fell because of anger, though it helped. It was fear." He smiled sadly. Fear, betrayal, miscalculation and a kriffing master manipulator. Yet, if he had to be honest with himself, Anakin had to admit that he had been walking a dark path ever since his mother was murdered. While Sidious did help him along the way, in the end it was his own choice to fall. To surrender to the Dark Side.

After all, it gave him what he wanted – it helped him blame anyone but himself for what happened the day the war ended and helped him drown his own pain in fury and the suffering of others. At least for a time.

Vader frowned at the terrified look Ahsoka was giving him. "Enough of that, Sips!" He scoffed. "I'm not going to train you into a Sith or something!" Vader knew all about that. All about the Jedi too. Ironically, those were paths for neither of them, which was a good thing.

The creeds, the philosophies of both sides were flawed at best, lies at worst.

He would forge his own path and hoped that Ahsoka would follow.

"You won't?" Snips looked unconvinced.

"We're fighting the Confederacy, who are led by a Sith. Of course we won't be like them!" He conveniently failed to mention that the Republic was led by the another Sith. That wasn't an explanation he wanted to give again. "I won't be trying to convince you to turn on the Jedi either." Anakin smirked. According to Kenobi, they were doing that themselves. "However, by the time I'm done with training you, Snips, you'll be able to take on the likes of Dooku or Windu alone and kick their asses."

"Without having to become all evil?" Ahsoka gave him a flat look.

"Unless you want to." Anakin shrugged. It was Snips. The girl didn't have an evil bone in her body, though at the correct circumstances she could be a vicious little thing.

"Not happening." Snips snapped, making him smile.

"Enough questions. You have a Hutt to hunt down. Go search!" Vader waved her away. He knew that this wasn't the end of the questions. She might even report him to the Council, though that didn't really concern him any more. Anakin was sure that Obi-Wan would be telling them a lot once he arrived back on Coruscant in a few days.

Vader returned his mind to the pressing issue – where the kriff was the little worm?!

**=KoF=**

**Jabba The Hutt's Palace**

**Tatooine**

Being a Sith led him to the "nicest" places. Dooku had to use every trick he had learned as a Jedi and diplomat, all his composure no to sneer at the stench and general shabby feel of Jabba's "palace". The gangster believed himself a man of power, yet this was the best he could get for himself. It was pathetic.

Next to the Sith Lord, his apprentice, Ventress, didn't even try to hide her displeasure. The fact that she was carrying a rumbling Hutt babe who was drooling all over her, didn't help her disposition. At least she could afford to show some anger. Dooku was the leader of the Confederacy. He couldn't afford to let anything ruffle his appearance, not even an understandable anger.

After all, this was what he was – not just a mask for the Sith Tyranus. In fact, it was the reverse was true – the Sith was the mask, which was made easier because that second persona was so similar to Dooku's real self. After all, he wasn't into this to get a revenge on the Jedi like his master. Oh, no. He didn't care about that. After all, when he left the Order, it was on rather amicable terms.

What he did was for two purposes – one was power. After he took his title and seat as a Count, Dooku found that he had a weakness - a great lust for power, one that was left unsatisfied by his station. The second – he became totally disillusioned with the Republic once he had to work with it outside of his previous station as a Jedi.

Becoming a Sith was a means to an end. It gave him tremendous personal power, which was dependent on no one else but himself. Second, it gave him an in on Sidious' plans for the galaxy. A way to deal with the rotten institution that was the Republic. It was too bad that billions had to die so that could happen. Before becoming a Sith, Dooku might have had some qualms in pursuing a path that would sunder the galaxy before making it better.

Now, well it was much simpler. If Dooku played his cards right, he would see the Republic destroyed and replaced by his Confederacy. All he had to do was to ensure his side's victory and the demise of his Master. After all, an apprentice betraying his master, well that was the Sith way.

Finally, they reached Jabba's audience chamber. Dooku shook his head to clear it and concentrated on the present. Geonosis had been an eye opener. That boy, Skywalker, he was tremendously powerful. It explained Palpatine's interest in Anakin. After fighting Skywalker, Dooku simply knew why Sidious wanted the boy – Skywalker was to be the old Sith's new apprentice. It was meant to replace him. Further, the youngster was on the verge of falling if he wasn't already. Sidious would be able to turn him soon anyway. Dooku wouldn't be surprised if he was to be the boy's final test.

That wasn't going to happen. Sidious wanted a long war so he could consolidate his power in the Senate before turning the Republic in his Empire. That wasn't going to happen either if Dooku had anything to say about it. That's why he was here, now.

The doors opened and a Gamorean guard waved them in.

Finally, the Count allowed himself a smile.

"Great Jabba!" Dooku's voice carried into the large chamber. A hint of the Force was more than enough to silence the hangers on and musicians. Everyone turned his way. "As promised, we recovered your son." The Sith Lord gestured to his apprentice.

Ventress sent him a glare, but nodded and walked towards the great Hutt. For once, Jabba was silent. He simply stared at his son, before a huge smile stretched his flat face. The overgrown slug carefully took the tiny babe from Ventress' hands, then his booming laughter shook the chamber. The baby started wiggling and gooing in delight.

A few minutes latter, when his son calmed down, Jabba turned his head towards Dooku and waved him to come closer.

"You promised. You delivered." The crime lord spoke in Huttesse.

"We did." Dooku gave a regal nod. "Further, we know who the perpetrator is – Garuda." The Sith Lord fished out a data chip from under his cloak. "Proof. Once she was aware that we'll be able to recover your son, she sicked the Republic on his location."

"Are you telling me that she's working with them?!" Jabba roared.

"Perhaps. All I'm giving you is facts. Garuda kidnapped your son. We went to recover him. Once Garuda was aware of that, she sent the Republic at the place where he was held. They attacked the forces which liberated your son. It was fortunate that my apprentice here," Dooku nodded at Ventress, "Was able to jump to hyperspace just before they arrived. We have some images of the Republic's 'rescue' attempt."

Dooku's hand disappeared under his cloak again and this time returned with a small holo-emitter. He pressed a button and a projection appeared. It showed a ruined temple built atop a tall plateau. There were tiny dots and larger silhouettes visible – droids, tanks and AA guns. A vast and wild jungle spawned all around the monastery. It was obviously that the camera shooting the holovid had been far away, though the picture was reasonably clear.

"This was where Garuda held your son. And this is the Republic's rescue attempt."

A blue bolt descended from the heavens and struck the side of the plateau near the monastery's courtyard. For a brief moment an almost invisible bluish glow was present, before it vanished leaving torrents of raw Ionic energy that ravaged the droids. A few seconds later, the picture scrambled and shut down.

"They struck the temple from orbit with Ion canon. A good tactic… unless they were there to save a kid." Dooku nodded at Jabba's son, who had fallen asleep after all the excitement.

"Garuda and the Republic will pay for this!" The Crime Lord growled. "But, first. You brought my son back. Name your reward and you will have it!" Jabba declared.

"We have a mutual problem. I propose that we fix it." Dooku declared. "I request that you do your best to close Hutt space to Republic military and civilian shipping. While as the leader of the Confederacy, I would prefer a more formal alliance, that's all I ask."

Jabba looked at Dooku for a couple of seconds and nodded.

"It shall be done."

"Thank you, Great Jabba." The Count gave his host a deep, respectful bow. It also hid Dooku's satisfied smile.

With a single stroke, multiple Republic armies and fleets in the Outer Rim were cut off from reinforcement and supply. Suddenly the war was that much closer to being won. If handled properly, the destruction of those units could weaken the Republic more than even their outright loss.

When Dooku straightened up, there was no trace of his joy – he was once again the perfect image of a noble leader.


End file.
